


Trust Instincts; INSTINCTS BAD

by Jordan_Marine



Category: The Talon Saga - Julie Kagawa
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, But it turns out okay, But it's still a happy story!, Cobalt makes so many mistakes, Found Family, Gen, I did my best, Minor Character Death, Pre-Series, character injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-02-27 20:19:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18746389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jordan_Marine/pseuds/Jordan_Marine
Summary: Twelve years ago, Cobalt was sent to destroy a St. George Chapterhouse, and was discovered in the act by a six-year-old girl. Apparently, quick reflexes and panic are a deadly combination, because he knocked her out before either of them could react or think of a less violent solution. And he couldn't exactly leave her to wake up and tell everyone that there was an intruder.So he took her with him.Turns out, it was one of his better mistakes.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It's nice to be working in a different timeline! And one that isn't full of angst, either.
> 
> So, before we start, I want to say that I have finished nearly the entire story, except for the epilogue. There's a lot of editing to be done, but it won't be abandoned, and updates should come about once a week, assuming that life doesn't get in the way. I'm super excited to share this with you, because I've been working on it for several months, and it was a lot of fun for me to write.

This was, by far, the worst decision that Cobalt had ever made.

To be fair, it wasn’t completely his fault. He had just broken into a St. George Chapterhouse, hacked into their servers, and planted a  _ bomb.  _ When he opened the door and there was a person on the other side, it was pure reflex that made him drag her from the open hallway and put her into a chokehold. And when he realized that this person was a human child, he couldn’t exactly let her go.

Two options. 

Option one: snap her neck. The smartest choice, a clean death, but as she flailed in his grasp, desperate to escape, he couldn't bring himself to kill her. She was too young, and too damn  _ small  _ for him to murder.

Option two: tighten his hold, cut off blood flow to the brain, and send her into blissful unconsciousness. Her squirming stopped, and he was left holding a deadweight.

This did not solve many problems.

“ _ Shit, _ ” he whispered, nearly dropping the child. It was a girl, maybe six or seven, maybe younger, wearing a frilly yellow dress. A  _ child,  _ and not just a child in the sense that some of the soldiers that he had fought were in their teens. A literal  _ child.  _ In the Chapterhouse that he had just planted a bomb in. 

He had  _ not  _ been trained for this.

_ Okay, Cobalt. This is… bad. Very bad.  _ He closed the door and set the girl down on the floor, the count of the timer in the back of his head. Thirteen minutes. He didn’t have much time before everyone in the building died, him included. And he had an unconcious girl to deal with. Since when did the Order have children in their buildings? Were they recruiting this young? Was she the offspring of some other soldiers? Were there women in the Order in the first place?

_ Focus, Cobalt!  _ He stabbed a hand through his hair. He had a problem, and he needed to fix it before everyone died. He had a number of options, none of which were good, but he had to pick one before the timer ran out. The mission wasn’t a failure  _ yet. _

Option one: The most obvious— ditch the girl and leave. She was a child of the Order, and that meant that she’d be raised as a dragon killer, and killing her young meant that she couldn’t kill  _ him  _ down the line. But… she was so  _ young,  _ and she looked so innocent while unconcious. She didn’t know any better. She never got a chance to form her own opinions. She didn’t deserve to  _ die. _

Option two: Take the girl and leave. She could probably fit in his duffel bag. But he couldn’t exactly take her back to Talon, and he couldn’t drop her off at a different Chapterhouse. And if  _ she  _ was here, could other children be wandering down the halls, as well? He was okay with killing soldiers, but children were so tiny and fragile. He didn’t want them to die.

Option three: ditch her, disarm the bomb, go back to Talon as a failure. That could work… that would probably work… unless she woke up in the next few minutes. People recovered from chokeholds fairly quickly, and she’d  _ definitely  _ run to the nearest soldier and tell them that a strange man had knocked her out. Bad idea.

Option four: Take the girl, disarm the bomb, and… what? Go back to Talon? Talon would probably kill her for association with the Order, or force her into the organization. Go rogue? That was  _ terrifying _ . But he could wait around for a few weeks and then drop her back off, that way. And then maybe go back to Talon and claim that he had gone off the grid for safety reasons. They’d hate it, but he had done stupid things like that before.

He had ten minutes left. He had to make a decision before they all died.

“ _ Shit, _ ” Cobalt repeated, and stuffed the girl into his duffel bag. She did, in fact, fit inside of it, save for a leg. He retreated back into the room to find the bomb, flashing at—

_ “Shit. _ ”

Five minutes. There was no way it was already at five minutes. And it kept going down, faster and faster. Was this a glitch? No, Talon didn’t give out weaponry that was  _ this  _ faulty, which meant… it meant…

Cobalt turned off the device with shaking hands that seemed to have lost their feeling. Talon had to have done this on purpose. There wasn’t any other explanation that made sense. Which meant that they wanted him  _ dead.  _ What did he do? Was it his sympathy for humans? His dismissiveness of authority? He didn’t think that anything he had done would’ve marked him such a liability that they’d send him to  _ die. _

_ Well, I guess that settles whether or not I’m going back to Talon.  _

The duffel bag shifted slightly, and Cobalt’s eyes widened. He didn’t have too much time before the girl woke up, and after that, he was as good as dead.

Well. He had just broken into an Order Chapterhouse, went rogue, and kidnaped a child in less than thirty minutes.

Cobalt bolted.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was made aware of a formatting error last chapter, which has since been fixed, so Cobalt's thoughts are now in italics, like they're supposed to be. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

He managed to get to his car, take the girl out of the duffle bag, and travel for about five minutes before she woke up. She stirred softly, at first, still drowsy and confused, which gave Cobalt enough time to pull the car over before she properly came to awareness. 

And started screaming. 

Cobalt all but scrambled into the backseat before she could open the car door and run into the woods. He couldn’t have her getting back to the Order while he was so close to their Chapterhouse. He couldn’t have her running off in the wrong direction and dying of hypothermia, either.

_ God, what has my life come to? _

“Who are you? Where am I? What— what—  _ help! Help me! _ ” she screamed, flailing. Cobalt didn’t try to dodge, letting her weak blows collide with his arms and chest as long as she didn’t try for the door again.

“Hey, hey, I’m not going to—  _ ow— _ hurt you. Calm down, I promise that— _ ow! _ ” She bit his hand.  _ Hard.  _ Cobalt wrenched it back, and she leapt for the door handle again. “ _ Hey,  _ stop it!” He pulled her back from the door and wrapped his arms around her in the most painful hug he had ever given. She screamed and hiked her leg up high enough to kick him square in the face. “How the fu—” Cobalt bit his tongue.  _ No swearing in front of the five-year-old.  _ “Stop it, I swear to— heck.” The girl was still squirming against him.

“Take me back home! My dad’s a soldier, he’ll— he’ll kill you if you don’t take me back! He kills monsters all the time, and he’ll look for me! Take me back!” her voice shook.

“Hey, hey, I’m going to take you back home. Promise. Just—  _ ow!  _ Can we have a conversation instead of kicking?” Cobalt said. The girl stilled, still tense. Cobalt loosened his grip on her and got his legs into the backseat, so he could sit beside her. He raised his hands in front of him.  _ Think peaceful thoughts. _ The girl glared at him, face red and blotchy, set into a glare that would be menacing if she were about twenty years older. 

“Look, small child. I… am  _ very _ sorry for this situation. I wasn’t supposed to be in the building, and I panicked when I saw you. I couldn’t let you tell anyone that I was there, or else the soldiers would have killed me.”

“They  _ will  _ kill you. They’re going to find me, and then they’ll kill you.”

_ Probably.  _ “We’ll see,” Cobalt said. The girl sniffed, and Cobalt cringed. Oh, this was an awful idea. She was from the  _ Order,  _ and he was a  _ dragon,  _ and he was going to be going  _ rogue.  _ He couldn’t go rogue and look after a kid, let alone a kid who wanted him to die. And if he died, then she’d probably die, too, just from association.

Maybe he could just leave her at the side of the road and point her in the direction of the Chapterhouse. Except then the Order would get on his trail, and he wouldn’t have enough of a headstart on them. He had to get off Talon’s radar before he could deal with getting on the Order’s, as well. How he was going to accomplish that, he had no idea.

“Are— are you a dragon?”

Cobalt pursed his lips. She was a  _ smart  _ child, then. He could lie. That would probably be the best option to keep her placeated until he could get her back home. Say that he was a human, that he didn’t even know what a dragon was. Of course, that lie wouldn’t last long, especially since Talon was going to be coming after him. He’d need to shift eventually, probably in front of her. And the intimidation of him being a dragon could keep her under control, if worse came to worst

“Yes,” he said. The girl’s eyes widened. It would have been comical, if he weren’t in the middle of the woods with a four-year-old child of the Order of St. George. “Hey, it’s going to be fine, small child. I… I’m not an evil dragon. Do you know about Talon?” She shrank further into herself, but nodded. “Yeah. I’m not part of them.”

“ _ All  _ dragons are part of Talon,” she said weakly. She looked ready to cry.

“No. There are plenty of dragons who don’t have anything to do with it. They run away from it, or they were born outside of it. I’m running away from the organization, because it’s… bad.”  _ Eloquent.  _ “It’s evil. The dragons that St. George hates are from Talon. But I’m  _ not _ a part of Talon.” He said it a bit firmer, for both himself and the three-year-old. Every time he repeated it, his resolve grew. He wasn’t a part of Talon, anymore. He didn’t want anything to do with it. That was the truth.

Now if only he could get this two-year-old to believe him.

“Are you going to kill me?” she whimpered. A tear dripped down her face. Cobalt winced.

“No. I’m not in the business of killing small children. But right now Talon is looking for me, because they’re mad that I left. And if I let you run back to the Order, they’ll be after me, too. I can’t outrun both St. George and Talon, so I need for you to sit tight for  _ just  _ a few weeks, until I can make sure I can return you without getting killed.”

“They’re going to look for you either way.”

“Trust me. I am aware,” Cobalt said. It was a bad idea in itself to be stationary for this long. Who knew how long it would be before the Order realized that one of their small children was missing?

The girl sniffed again, and Cobalt realized that she hadn’t stopped crying. If anything, she was just crying more, her chin trembling and shoulders shaking, trying so hard to stifle it and failing miserably.

“Oh, sh...oot. Please don’t cry. I really can’t handle that, right now. It’s not going to be forever, okay? It’s just going to be a few weeks, and then I’ll bring you back, and we can both forget that this nightmare ever happened,” Cobalt was grasping at straws. He knew nothing about children, let alone infant Order children. “What’s your name?”

“M-Madison d’Arc,” she whispered.

“Madison,” Cobalt repeated. “That’s a pretty name. My name is… uh…” Shit. He couldn’t give her his real name. That would just make it easier to track him down. “...Leandro.”  _ Fuck, now I’m going to have to respond to the name Leandro until she leaves.  _ “How old are you, Madison?”

“’M six and a half.”

“Wow.” She was so young. He really had kidnaped an infant. When Cobalt was six, he still couldn’t shift or read. “You’re being very brave, you know. And I am  _ very  _ sorry that I kidnapped you. I swear I’m not evil; I’m just trying to live. I promise that I’ll get you back home safely. Okay?” He gave a thumbs up.

Madison wiped her eyes and sniffed again, hands shaking. Cobalt felt a physical pang go through his chest at the sight. She was terrified, and he didn’t blame her for it. The other options would have left one of them dead, but he still wished that neither of them had to go through this. He didn’t know the first thing about child care. How often did they need to  _ eat? _

He needed a plan. 

Obviously, he had to get out of dodge as quickly as possible. Normally, he’d go to a Talon-heavy location to avoid the Order, but he couldn’t go anywhere near Talon _.  _ They had just tried to kill him, and he was definitely going to be marked rogue the moment they found out that he wasn’t dead. He would need to ditch the car, get his hands on hard cash, and find a place to lay low. With a six-year-old who hated his guts. Then he could circle back and drop her off in a few weeks. Or a few months, depending on how badly the Order reacted.

“I’m going to start driving, again. So… buckle your seatbelt, maybe try to get some sleep. I’ll get us both food pretty soon,” he said. Madison nodded and kept her eyes downcast. For a moment, Cobalt wondered if he was supposed to hug her, or something— that was something that humans did to give reassurance— but that felt like it would be creepy. She was obviously afraid of him. The best thing he could do to keep her minimally traumatized would be to ignore her. Probably.

_ Holy fuck, I’m screwed. _

He clambered back into the front seat and kept driving, the dirt road turning into gravel turning into asphalt, keeping his rearview mirror pointed at Madison. She had her eyes fixed on her shoes, but occasionally would glance up at him before looking back down. At least she wasn’t crying, even if she still looked petrified.

_ This isn’t going to be forever,  _ Cobalt reminded himself. He would be able to bring her back, and it would all turn into a bad memory for her. No doubt that this incident would probably make her hate dragons with a burning passion to rival that of the average soldier, but she’d get to  _ live,  _ at least.

For a moment, Cobalt considered trying to explain that his options had boiled down to killing her or kidnapping her. Then he decided that it wouldn’t help his case.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked after a few hours of silent driving on the backroads.

“The United States. We’ll probably try to lay low on the East Coast, for now, probably around the Carolinas. Talon has too much influence in Appalachia to try and cross over to the Midwest,” Cobalt replied, before he realized that what he said probably made  _ no  _ sense to a Canadian six-year-old. “Just… We’re going to the United States. That’s all that you really need to know. You ever been to the States?”

She shook her head. Cobalt focused on the road, turning back onto a proper state highway. He didn’t want to ask too many questions— that could quickly devolve into an interrogation from Madison’s perspective. But casual conversation might be safe. They were going to have to get used to each other’s existence.

“I’m not originally from there, either,” Cobalt said, trying to keep his voice conversational. “They’re pretty lackluster, to be honest. Nothing like what I expected. The good parts aren’t nearly as amazing as people make them out to be, and the bad parts are really just mediocre. But it’s a big country, where one can blend in pretty easily. With any luck, I’ll be able to Talon and St. George off of my back, and I can drop you off either at your Chapterhouse or another one that can get you back home. I know… there’s one somewhere in Mississippi, right?”

Madison shrugged.

“If I dropped you off there, would they be able to take you to back home?”

She shrugged again. “Maybe.”

“Okay, that’s good,” Cobalt said. “All that I need to do is find out where they are. They won’t be expecting me, like your Chapterhouse would be, and so I could drop you off near there and get out of dodge with a bit more ease. That sound good to you?”

“Okay.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper.

“Okay,” Cobalt repeated. “Okay. This is…  _ fine.  _ I promise that this won’t be forever, Madison. You’ll get to go home. I’ll make sure of that.”  _ And I’ll be able to work on my own again. Me against Talon, the Vipers, and St. George. _

_ Whelp. This can only end well for me. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you like my writing and would like to give me encouragement to continue, please drop a review and tell me what you think! It would truly make my day.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the slow update; I promise that I didn't do it on purpose, but I was sick last week, and I wanted to edit this chapter while not fevered. Thank you for your patience! I hope that this chapter will make up for the time spent waiting, and that I'll have the next chapter out with more speed than this one.

Cobalt ended up driving through the night before he remembered that he had promised himself and the small child food. Madison had managed to nod off within a few hours, thankfully, her head resting up against the window as she slept, hair covering her face like a sheet. She looked… calm, almost. Completely different to how she looked when she was crying. 

He hadn’t actually looked at her much, during the conversation, much more focused on his surroundings and her desperate attempts to kick him. But now that he looked at her, he realized that she was  _ small,  _ small enough for him to throw, if he tried. Her yellow dress was pressed and neat, arms skinny and fragile. She looked much too innocent to have lived in an Order Chapterhouse.

_ To  _ **_live_ ** _ in an Order Chapterhouse,  _ Cobalt reminded himself, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel.  _ This isn’t a mission to get her out of the Order before she becomes a dragon killer. She’s going to go back.  _

_ God, I’m probably making the most dedicated soldier in North America, right now. _

Cobalt shook himself and pulled into to the nearest multi-purpose store he could find, making sure to lock the doors behind him in case the Madison woke up. Child locks were a miracle. He needed to get them both food, which was a problem within itself; he could live off of nothing but jerky, granola bars, and fruit snacks, but he also had a human child to worry about. What did human children need to eat? Milk? Hot pockets? What if she was at a teething age?

_ Humans don’t teethe, idiot. _

They’d also need clothes. Or Madison would, at least. Something that she could run in. And hygiene stuff. And… what else did human children need? And how was he going to keep her from running off or accusing him of kidnapping? Was he going to have to handcuff her to a motel heating vent? He was so in over his head. Basilisks and children did  _ not  _ mix in any sense. And he only had so much money on him.

_ Okay, Cobalt, one thing at a time.  _ Cobalt reminded himself and walked over to the food section. He tried to get what a human would need, even if he didn’t know exactly what that was. He knew that sugar was bad, and that humans and dragons alike occasionally needed vegetables, but other than that he was lost. He didn’t even know if she had allergies. He should’ve asked that before she fell asleep. He got a few boxes of hot pockets, granola bars, and yogurt. That would have to be good enough to satisfy her.

He didn’t buy any clothes for himself— he had spent days in his tactical gear, so he could deal— instead focusing his time on finding girl’s clothes that one could run in. Which was surprisingly difficult. Honestly, how did people expect small girls to live without clothes that they could run in? The skirts would have them tripping over their own feet, and the sparkles would alert a viper from 20 miles out. In the end, he managed to find a yellow t-shirt that looked vaguely pretty but didn’t have loose frills that could snag or catch fire, and simple jeans. Madison would probably hate them, but at least she’d be able to climb out a window and make an escape if worse came to worst. Hygiene products were much easier. Shampoo, soap, toothpaste, and toothbrushes. That was all that they’d need. Everything that he bought could fit into his duffel bag, and probably leave room for Madison.

_ I can do this, I can do this, it will all be fine, I’m totally not in over my head.  _ Cobalt set everything in the passenger’s seat and continued moving. He could ditch the car in the next few hours, after Madison woke up, and hopefully make it out of New England by the evening. They could probably hole up in a motel, or just sleep in the car. 

Although, then he’d have to worry about her trying to escape. Not only would that end badly for _him,_ but he couldn’t have a six-year-old wandering around the United States with no way to get home, let alone a six-year-old from St. George. Talon could track her down if she started talking to the wrong people, or regular kidnappers and human traffickers. Even CPS posed a threat.

God. He couldn’t have kidnapped someone a little bit older, could he? He had to knock out the six-year-old.

“Dad?” Madison mumbled and yawned. Cobalt winced. “I had a…  _ oh. _ ”

“Yeah… not a dream. Sorry, Miss d’Arc,” Cobalt said. He reached over and tossed a yogurt stick into the backseat. “I got you food, though, if you’re hungry. We’ll be on the road for a few more hours, at least, so, if you want to listen to the radio, or play the alphabet game, or… tell me about yourself… uh… if you want to ask me any questions, I’d be happy to answer them.”

“I want to go home,” she said softly. Cobalt winced and adjusted the rearview mirror. She didn’t touch the yogurt, eyes fixed on her shoes. He hadn’t gotten her new shoes. Well, she was wearing combat boots, anyway, so it was fine.

“I’m going to return you as soon as possible, and then we can forget this ever happened,” he said. Madison didn’t look reassured. “Look, Madison. St. George would’ve killed me if they had known that I was in the building. I couldn’t risk having you tell them.”

“‘Cause you’re a  _ dragon _ . You’re  _ evil.  _ And they’ll kill you for kidnapping me, too.”

“Yeah… okay, sure,” Cobalt sighed. Trying to argue with her was like explaining philosophy to a cat. And yet, getting through to her would make his life  _ so  _ much easier over the next few weeks. Who knew how long it would take him to find the Mississippi Chapterhouse. He didn’t want to have to chase her down after she ran away. She didn’t know how things worked in the States.  _ Cobalt  _ barely knew how things worked in the States. 

“Okay… listen to me for a few moments,” Cobalt said, gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles turned pale. “Dragons don’t want to hurt you. Most of us don’t care about world domination or killing humans or… whatever you think we do. I know that  _ I  _ don’t. We just want to live, like humans do. And when you found me, I panicked. I thought that you were going to yell for help, and the soldiers would have gunned me down if you had, so... I reacted badly. And I am  _ sorry,  _ Madison. I promise, I’m going to do everything to keep you safe until I can get you back home. I just want to keep living. Just like you do. Does that make sense to you?”

She sniffed and hugged her arms to her chest. “But my dad said that all dragons are part of Talon, and Talon wants to take over the world. They want to— to enslave humans. Or kill them.”

“It’s… complicated,” Cobalt said, trying to figure out how to explain Talon to a six-year-old. “Do you like history, Madison?”

“A bit,” she mumbled.

“Okay, you might find this slightly interesting, then.”  _ Probably not. I hated it learning about this bullshit.  _ “Talon started in Europe about a thousand years ago, around the same time as the Order of St. George. It was made to protect dragons, because back then, it was really dangerous to be a dragon. We couldn’t shift, and we were isolated, so it was easy for humans to kill us. Now, Talon offers dragons protection against St. George and other humans, and it also offers power to dragons who want it. It’s been spreading across the world, and the further it spreads, the more dragons join it. Either that, or they’re born into it. You with me so far?”

Cobalt spared a glance into the backseat. Madison had stopped crying, and had decided to eat the yogurt stick that Cobalt had thrown at her. Cobalt looked back to the road.

“I think so,” she said. 

“It’s like… you’ve always been part of the Order, I assume, but most of the soldiers join for other reasons,” Cobalt said. “But not all humans are part of St. George.”

“Of course not!”

“Exactly. Not all dragons are part of Talon, just like not all humans are part of the Order,” Cobalt said. “I’m not sure exactly what Talon wants. Probably… probably world domination, if I’m being honest. But those aren’t the only dragons. There are the East Asian Dragons, who have never been part of Talon, and are born outside of it. And I’m  _ pretty  _ sure that there are a few pockets of others in the Middle East. There were a lot in India, but St. George killed all of them during the reign of the British Raj. But there are also dragons like me, who…” Cobalt swallowed. “Left Talon. I disagreed with what they did, so I decided to leave.” The words came a little more solidly than last time. They had tried to blow him up. They had forced this decision on him. 

“Then why were you in the Chapterhouse?”

Cobalt blinked several times. She was a perceptive child. “I left incredibly recently. I was supposed to get information from your Chapterhouse, and I…”  _ was supposed to blow you up _ “...didn’t want to. The information would have been used to hurt other people, so I decided to leave. We call it going rogue.” A bold faced lie, but Madison looked like she had bought it.

“And because of that…” Cobalt continued, “Talon isn’t going to be happy that I’m… uh…”  _ not dead and buried in the rubble of the Canadian Chapterhouse. Wait, I can’t tell a six-year-old that.  _ “That I ran away. They’re going to be sending people after me to kill me.” Madison’s eyes widened. “If you run off, or try to alert St. George, they could find you, too.”  _ Yeah, this is going to give the small child nightmares for the next few lifetimes.  _ “Talon  _ will  _ hurt you if they find you, Madison d’Arc. Not all dragons are bad, but Talon is still… shady.” It was best to be blunt, anyway. Even if Madison’s eyes were wide enough to see the whites. 

He had really gotten himself into a mess.

“But you’ll never set foot in that organization, Madison,” Cobalt said firmly. “Not if I have anything to say about it. I won’t let them touch you.”

Madison gulped. “And… and you’ll let me go?”

“Yes. I’ll keep you from Talon, and I’ll get you back home, or I’ll die trying.”  _ Not like I’ll have that much of a lifespan, anyway.  _ “I don’t think that I have the capability of caring for a human for any more than a few weeks, anyway. Just don’t cause problems, okay? I’ll get you to the other Chapterhouse as quickly as possible, but it’ll be easier if you’re agreeable.”

She nodded and finished her yogurt with renewed interest, glancing up at him occasionally. Cobalt focused his eyes on the road and started to look for a good place to ditch the car. With any luck, Madison d’Arc wouldn’t try to run off, or raise any alarms. The last thing that he needed was to be arrested because of a six-year-old.

 

~***~

 

Turned out, he didn’t need to worry. He managed to hijack a new car and move their meager possessions into it without having her run off, and she stayed in the car when he went to a motel’s desk to rent a room for the night. Apparently, his speech about Talon stuck with her.

It  _ was  _ a real fear. There would be Vipers after him, and if they  _ didn’t  _ kill Madison, they’d drag her back to the organization for information on the Order. Neither were options that he wanted. To be fair, he didn’t want  _ any  _ of the options. He should have left her back at her base in a supply closet, or something.

“We’re going to lay low here, for now. I’ll try to get my assets together, get a plan for keeping us safe… figure out where in Mississippi the Chapterhouse is.”  _ Because I can’t do this for long. _

Madison nodded. She looked lost. Cobalt furrowed his brow as he set his bag down, thinking about a shopping list, where he could go in the long-term, and how to keep the six-year-old in his care from killing herself or the both of them. He had dealt with a young child exactly once in his life, when he was assimilating into the human environment at sixteen years old, and he had to look after his friend’s little sister for about an hour. That was a  _ long  _ time ago.

“Mr. Leandro?” Madison asked softly.  _ Fuck, right, my name is Leandro. _

“Yes?”

“My older sister says that dragons eat children,” she said, and her eyes told him that she believed her sister. Cobalt was torn over being outraged or amused by the Order’s choice of bedtime stories.

“Dragons don’t eat people,” Cobalt sat down on his bed and pulled a few granola bars out of the duffle bag. He tossed one to Madison, who caught it easily. Even in her yellow dress, all green eyes and innocence, he could see signs of her upbringing. There was strength in her arms, fragile as they were. Coordination. Her posture was straight and refined. “I can promise that there are  _ plenty  _ of things that I’d rather eat than a human child.” He bit off a piece of his own granola bar for emphasis. Madison didn’t reply. “Seriously. Promise. If all goes well, we won’t have any problems with each other.”

She nodded. At this point, she was probably too scared to do anything. Not the best state for her to be in, he’d admit. In a perfect world, he’d be able to steer her away from hating dragons before St. George’s ideology was rooted in her bloodstream. But he’d accept the simple ‘ _ not about to run away and alert both Vipers and St. George where I am _ .’

Cobalt gave a long sigh. This was going to be a long few weeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, that was a slightly more successful conversation than last time, right? 
> 
> Please give me reviews, they help the chapters come faster, I promise.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on schedule!

_ Things to remember, when caring for a six-year-old: _

_ One: They’re always hungry. Always. They might eat nearly as much as a dragon does. Granola bars and hot pockets will not cut it. _

_ Two: They have no impulse control, especially when you kidnapped her. You must always be watching after her. Do not leave your knife on the table when brushing your teeth, or she will use it to break open a window and try to escape. _

_ Three: They cry a lot. Holy shit, whatever you do, she will cry over it. It doesn’t matter what it is. _

_ Four: They hate you. They hate you so much. Especially ever since you ‘lost’ her yellow dress. Apparently a nice yellow shirt is not the same thing. Suck it up child, you can run better in overalls than in flouncy bullshit. _

_ Four A: Despite this hatred, they will ask you to carry them when their feet get sore. Just do it and spare yourself her complaints. _

_ Five: Do they need sleep??? Are they nocturnal??? Is that what’s happening??? _

_ Six: They might not have long term memory. They will forget everything. Clothes, backpack, the Vipers that you keep reminding her will kill the both of you unless you keep moving. You’d think that the Order of St. George would discipline their children better, but apparently not. _

“Dragon, sir?”

Cobalt stifled a growl, eyes flitting to the girl sitting on the floor. Credit to her, she was very polite, when she wasn’t trying to break out of the car that he had locked her in while making a grocery run, reminding him that the Order would find and kill him, or complain about literally  _ everything  _ that he did.

“You can call me Leandro. What’s the sitch?”

“Why do you do this every night?” she asked, point up at the motion detector that Cobalt had been working on setting up. “It makes noises all night.”

“It’s a motion detector. It will tell me if the Vipers are coming. That way, if they come, I’ll be awake, and they won’t be able to catch us off guard. Because if they  _ do… _ ” Cobalt didn’t finish his sentence, but he heard Madison gulp nonetheless.

“Murder,” she said softly.

“Yup.”

There was a silence between that. Cobalt ground his teeth and stood up on his toes to try and get the camera adjusted properly. He wasn’t short by any means, but he needed three more inches to do it comfortably.

“But why do I have to do it  _ with _ you?” she asked softly, a hint of a whine in her voice.

“Because last time I left you unsupervised in the motel room, you broke the window, and we had to move ahead of schedule. You still have the stitches to prove it,” Cobalt said. “Just a few more weeks, hatchling. Then you can go back to the Order, and I can…”  _ die, probably. _

He did need a long term plan, eventually. Either Talon or the Order controlled most of the globe; Talon had North and South America, the parts of the Central Asia, and Indonesia, while the Order had North America, the other parts of the Central Asia, Europe, Africa, and Australia. That meant that he could go to East Asia, Antarctica, or Russia and be relatively safe. Antarctica wasn’t possible, for obvious reasons, and Russia was also a no go, because no matter how much he hated the jungle, he didn’t know how to handle cold climates. He had gone through two missions in Siberia, and he had gotten frostbite both times. That meant the only realistic option was East Asia But, frankly speaking, Cobalt didn’t  _ want  _ to. He didn’t know anything about those countries, or any of the languages that they spoke, or what they were like. And he didn’t think that the Eastern dragons would accept him, anyway.

So he might as well stay in the States. Or go down to Mexico. And… 

He didn’t know.

“I want to go back  _ now, _ ” she mumbled. 

“I know, hatchling. Trust me, I want you home, too. I just want to be able to get you home without getting killed,” he said and finished setting up the motion detector. “Come on. You need to get to bed. We’re going to be moving again tomorrow.” Madison huffed and stood. “Hey, try to think of it this way: free tour of America. I’ll take you to Wayne National Park, if you want. Or… a beach, or something.”

Madison didn’t reply. They entered into their motel room, Cobalt flicking on the lights and checking to make sure everything was how he left it. It was a dump in the backroads of North Carolina, where Cobalt hoped that Talon wouldn’t look for him— Cobalt had never been a fan of the Southern States, and everyone in the organization knew it. Some people could put up with mosquitos the size of vultures and air the consistency of soup, but he was not one of those people. There was a reason that he tried to avoid rainforests ever since he turned sixteen. At least in the rainforest he could get away with shifting.

“Brush your teeth and change into your pajamas,” Cobalt said as he checked over his weaponry. Madison didn’t object, thankfully. She knew the bedtime drill before Cobalt even did; he usually just collapsed into his bed whenever he could, whether it was 7:30 or 3:00 in the morning. But Madison tended to get drowsy around 9:30, and she was obviously more comfortable with her situation when she had a routine to follow. Probably her Order upbringing shining through.

He needed to invest in some parenting books, or something. 

Cobalt ran a hand through his tangled hair and grabbed his own toothbrush, using the vanity outside the bathroom as Madison changed. He could feel sympathy for her— she hadn’t been outside a Chapterhouse, let alone outside Canada. She didn’t know him. She still had the Order’s view of dragons in her head. Everything being considered, she was holding up surprisingly well. He needed to give her a bit more credit, no matter how much she cried.

Madison walked out of the bathroom and climbed into her bed without a word between them, and Cobalt breathed a sigh of relief. He got through another day. Neither of them were dead. They hadn’t run into any Vipers. Yet. He was  _ incredibly  _ lucky. All that he had to do was find the Chapterhouse in Mississippi and drop her off without getting his head shot off, and then he’d only have to look after himself.

Cobalt heard a sniff from behind him.

_ Goddammit. _

“So… are you crying because you’re tired, you’re scared, or you’re upset?” he asked and washed off his toothbrush.

“I’m not crying.”

“Uh-huh,” Cobalt rolled his eyes and turned around. She was, in fact, crying, even though she was trying pretty hard to hide it. Cobalt sighed to himself and sat down at the foot of her bed, far enough away that she wouldn’t find the need to scoot further away. He had been the one to take this six-year-old on a road trip. It was his job to make sure that she wasn’t completely traumatized by it all.

“What’s wrong, hatchling?” he asked again. Madison sniffed and wiped her eyes. “Can I make it any better for you?”

“I miss home,” she whispered. Cobalt closed his eyes and felt his shoulders slump. He kept telling her  _ just a bit longer,  _ but he knew that it couldn’t help, because  _ just a bit longer  _ wasn’t  _ now.  _ And he couldn’t make it any faster for her, either. “This is all... I just want my family back. Mom— Mom told me and my sister stories before bed, and now everyone’s probably  _ so worried  _ about me.” Her jaw trembled. “They  _ will  _ kill you when they find me.”

“Okay,” he said softly. There wasn’t any point in denying her claim about his death— if that was what she needed to keep warm at night, then so be it. He was okay with that.

“It’s hard to sleep without bedtime stories. We had a  _ routine, _ ” she sniffed. Cobalt briefly considered trying to spin a story— he had learned about common folklore from his basic education in Talon, so he could probably think of something— but he wasn’t a storyteller. And he wasn’t going to try and act as her parent. If he started doing that, he’d get attached, and he  _ couldn’t  _ get attached. She had parents. She wanted them. Not him.

“Did you have a family, back in— in Talon?” Madison asked softly.

Cobalt blinked. Madison had asked plenty of questions over the past few days— where they were going, why he had run away from Talon, why he wasn’t acting evil when she knew the truth about dragons— but she had never asked something like  _ that.  _ As if he was a person with life experiences, instead of her warden.

“No,” Cobalt shook his head. “Talon doesn’t want their dragons to have any loyalties other than the organization. So I never knew my mother, or any siblings… I did have a friend, though.” Cobalt swallowed. “Her name was— is… was Stealth.”

“Do you miss her?” 

“Nah…” Cobalt shook his head. “She wasn’t a very good friend. Neither of us were. We mostly just… got each other out of tight spaces. She saved my life a few times, I helped her complete one of her missions, we’d sometimes keep each other company when we were in medbay. But she’d kill me in a heartbeat if Talon told her to, and I’d be just as quick to defend myself.”

Madison looked down at the covers of her bed. “So… you don’t understand what it’s like? To want to go home?”

“No.”

Madison sniffed, eyes watering again. Just when Cobalt thought that he was done for the night. “You’re gonna let me go home, right?”

“Of course, Madison. I  _ promise  _ this is temporary. The only reason that you’re still here is because I can’t find the Mississippi Chapterhouse.”

“I miss my mom.”

“I know, I know. I’m not going to pretend to understand, but I know you miss everyone. If I could make it any easier…”

“Can— can you tell me a story, so I can sleep?”

Cobalt froze, thrown completely off-guard by the question. It was a simple request, asked by a child who was grasping for some semblance of familiarity in a terrifying situation. But he wasn’t her mother, he wasn’t her family, and he couldn’t pretend to be, either. For both of their sakes.

“I’m not a minstrel, hatchling,” Cobalt said after a few beats of silence.

Madison sniffed again. Cobalt winced. He  _ did  _ know folklore. A few stories had stuck with him, and one or two were probably child-safe. And he was so,  _ so  _ sick of making Madison cry.

“I do know a ghost story, though,” he offered lamely.

Madison wiped her nose and blinked at him with bloodshot eyes. Cobalt already regretted what he was about to do. He was a basilisk. Basilisks and children weren’t made to get along. He wasn’t this kid’s parent. Still, he scooted closer to her, leaned up against the headboard, and tried to figure out how to craft this story into a slightly less horrifying tale than it was while still keeping it interesting. Of  _ course  _ the first story to come to mind was the legend that he had actually been afraid of when he was younger.

“This is a legend that’s told all over the south. Some people say that it took place in Mexico or the other Latin American nations, others say it was in the Southern United States. No one knows exactly what happened, or when, but every child in the south has heard a version of what happened. This is the story of La Llorona.”

This was an  _ awful  _ idea. But Madison dried her eyes and stopped sniffing, so he’d count that as a win.

“So. The story of La Llorona goes back to colonial times, when the Spanish had first discovered the Americas. These were hard times for everyone, especially for the indigenous tribes that already lived there,” Cobalt began. Madison looked vaguely confused, and Cobalt couldn’t tell if it was because he was talking too fast, or because she didn’t know what ‘indigenous’ meant. Probably the latter. “ _ Indigenous  _ means native. These people had established entire empires before the Spanish came in, but the Spanish really wanted their land, so they took it by force.”

“Why?” Madison asked.

“That’s… a very good question to ask your parents when you get back home,” Cobalt said. “I’m sure there’s a kid-friendly picture book somewhere.  _ Anyway.  _ The Spanish came further and further inland and began to set up towns. They even interacted with the indigenous people for trade and...”  _ slavery  _ “Stuff. And at one point, one of the indigenous women became comfortable enough with these Spanish people that she fell in love with one of the men. The legend never tells us their names, because they’ve been forgotten in time. They had three children together, and they were very happy.” Cobalt took a breath. Of all of the ghost stories to tell, it was going to be  _ this  _ one. “But then, one day—”

“Oh, is this where the dragon comes in?”

Cobalt stopped, opening and closing his mouth. “ _ What? _ ”

“Mom always tells me nice stories, but my sister tells me ghost stories, and dragons  _ always  _ end up eating the children.”

“Your sister is a very interesting person,” Cobalt said. Madison gave a shaky smile. “But there’s no dragon in this story. One day, the man’s wife came to the town. He had never told his current girlfriend about her, but he had been married when he was back in Spain. His wife had prestige and power within the Spanish Empire, which his girlfriend didn’t have, so he broke up with the woman who he had the children with.” 

Madison gaped, her tears forgotten. 

“The woman was  _ heartbroken.  _ She was angry with the man for not telling her that he had a wife, and for leaving her alone with three children that wouldn’t be accepted by neither the Spanish nor her own people. In a bout of rage and grief, she went to the river and  _ drowned  _ her three children.”

“ _ What?  _ Why? That can’t be right!”

“That’s what the legend says!”

Madison scooted closer to Cobalt so she could put her chin on his arm and stare up at him, eyes wide. Cobalt stiffened. She was so small. So fragile. And for the first time  _ ever,  _ she was willingly being close to him. What if he broke her?

“She had done this act out of sheer wrath, and when she realized what she had done, she was even more distraught than she had been before. She threw herself into the river to be with her children, and she  _ died _ .”

Madison clutched at his arm.

“Of course, this is not the end of the story. I promised you ghosts. This woman was barred from the afterlife for the crimes she committed, and a curse was placed upon her soul, so she would never know rest until she could find her children. Her children, which were already buried under the silt of the streambed. Within time, as he wandered the streams, she was driven insane by her search and her restlessness. This woman became _La Llorona,_ the weeping woman, who haunts the rivers and streams. Sometimes, when you’re in the south, you can see a woman wearing a white dress, screaming and wailing for the children that she killed. And they say that if any young children cross her path, she _grabs them,_ ” Cobalt grabbed her arm, and Madison jumped, “and she drags them down to the bottom of the river to replace the children that she lost.” Madison’s eyes were as wide as the moon. “And that’s why you never, _never_ play by the river bed at night. And if you hear a woman crying at night, _run._ Run in the opposite direction, and don’t look back.”

“Have you ever seen her?” Madison whispered.

_ Nope. Ghosts aren’t real.   _ “Once, when I was young,” Cobalt shrugged. The story of La Llorona wasn’t complete without someone claiming to have seen her. “I lived down in the Yucatan Peninsula, in Mexico. I went on a walk around dusk, and I didn’t realize that it was getting dark until right had already fallen. I heard this crying out in the jungle, near the flooded out river. I just thought that it was one of the townspeople that got lost, and I was curious. Keep in mind, I was  _ very  _ young, and I had never encountered a human outside of Talon before, so I was already cautious.”

“What happened?” Madison breathed.

“I approached the river, trying to keep myself out of view, and I saw this woman. She was floating on top of the water, and her face was covered by her hands. A felt the air grow cold as I watched, and she continued to cry. I could hear her say  _ Mis Niños, mis niños, perdió, perdió, perdió.  _ And then, her head snapped toward me, and her hands dropped. Her eyes were  _ completely _ black, her face was grey, and she was suddenly  _ in front of me.  _ She grabbed my arm and dragged me into the water before I could try to run.”

Madison gasped, and Cobalt repressed the urge to smirk. 

“The river was flooded at the time, so the current was very strong. She was screaming the entire time, her nails digging into my skin, and I still remember what she called me when she tried to force my head underwater.” Cobalt paused. “She called me  _ mi niño.  _ My son. I had never been called anyone’s son before, so it managed to shock me out of my stupor. I shifted into my true form and clawed my way out of the river, half drowned, coughing up water. I stumbled back to my compound, and the next thing I remember, I woke up in bed.”

“It was a dream?”

“Well, I tried to  _ convince _ myself that it was a dream for a few days, but I had this dark bruise on my wrist where she grabbed me, and then my trainers asked me how I had gotten lost that night, and why I was back so late. So what I saw was real. If I had been human, I’d probably have been killed.” 

Madison’s eyes widened even further than Cobalt thought possible. 

“Six weeks later, I visited the to see if I could find her again and prove that I wasn’t crazy. But she didn’t appear, and I never saw La Llorona again.”

Madison was practically clinging to him.

“Well, good night!”

“Wait, wait wait wait, you can’t just leave me! I asked for a story so I could go to  _ sleep! _ ”

“We’re sleeping in the same room, hatchling, I won’t be leaving you. Besides, she can’t get you here. We’re not near a river.”

“So? I bet La Ya—Yore—”

“La Llorona. You roll your tongue on the  _ r. _ ”

“I bet she doesn’t show up on your motion-detector thingies. And— and what if I have a nightmare?”

Cobalt sighed. He had probably oversold it. He was specifically trying  _ not  _ to traumatize the small child. But the story of La Llorona wasn’t complete without  _ someone  _ saying that they saw her. And he  _ had,  _ in fact, had that nightmare when he was younger.

“If you have a nightmare…” He had really dug himself in too deep. “You can come over to my bed, if you really think it will help. Okay? Now give me back my arm.”

She pouted, but Cobalt could pull his arm out of her grasp and went to turn off the lights. He collapsed into bed, already half conscious. Madison huffed and shifted in her bed, but she wasn’t crying. At least there was that.

After about five minutes, Madison sat up in bed. Cobalt glared at her as she padded over to his bed, but he didn’t protest when she laid down next to him, settling under his arm. For a moment, he considered telling her to go back to bed, but he wasn’t  _ heartless.  _ He could deal with a clingy human for one night.

“G’night, Leandro,” Madison whispered. Cobalt blinked in surprise. It was Leandro, now. Not  _ dragon. _

“Night, hatchling.”

Not that he was attached, or anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story of La Llorona is a common legend in the American Southwest & Latin America. I learned about it in third grade (because I do not live in the American Southwest) and was obsessed with her. I'm sure that Riley will learn how to tell appropriate bedtime stories. Eventually.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At one point, I'll actually start using the chapter summary section. This is not now.
> 
> Chapter is shorter than I'd like it, but that's just how it goes, sometimes— originally, it was around 1,000 words, so I think that I did alright.

By the end of two weeks, Cobalt finally felt like he was getting the hang of childcare. He wasn’t  _ good  _ at it by any stretch of the term, but he had managed to get as far as he had without killing Madison or getting killed by her. He didn’t want to admit it, but he was starting to like this human kid who asked him to tell stories at night and talked about the Order like it was the greatest thing in the world. She had gotten easier to deal with, as well. She stopped trying to run away whenever he let her out of his sight, and she stopped reminding him that the Order would kill him. She had even gone as far as to suggest how to drop her off in Mississippi without getting caught. Although that may have been less for his safety and more a hope that if she kept reminding him of the Order, he’d get her back home faster.

“Leandro?”

Cobalt looked up from cleaning off his gun. Madison was sitting cross-legged on her bed, drying off her hair with one of his T-shirts, because apparently ‘ _ towels are bad for curly hair’ _ . He didn’t ask questions. He was just happy that she didn’t complain about taking a bath.

“Yeah, hatchling?”

“If dragons  _ aren’t  _ evil, like you keep telling me, then why does the Order wanna to kill you? ‘Cause  _ they  _ aren’t evil, either.”

Cobalt looked back down to his gun and continued to clean it with more intensity.

“Leandro?”

“It’s... complicated. You can’t divide the world into good and evil, because there’s too much space between the two things. Most people who do bad things do it for good reasons. Or… what they think is a good reason.”

“You sound like my cousin Eli before she got Court Martialed,” Madison said.

“Your cousin Eli was a smart person,” Cobalt said. 

“He’s still in prison because he was caught talking to a human who worked for Talon. Mom and Dad don’t talk about him anymore.”

Cobalt snorted. “That’s one way to deal with people who don’t live up to your expectations.”  _ Pretend like they don’t exist, put them in prison, bury them under a St. George Chapterhouse using their own bomb…  _

“There’s a lot of bad history between dragons and humans. That’s the first thing you have to understand. Dragons used to pillage human towns because humans had shiny things and they kept things like sheep in enclosed pastures, which made hunting  _ incredibly  _ easy. Humans would kill dragons because… because our skin made good armor, and they felt threatened by our existence, and if they found our homes, there were usually a lot of shiny things. So dragons and humans kept fighting each other, and Talon and the Order of St. George formed to defend against the other and… at one point, St. George forgot dragons weren’t demons.”

Cobalt clicked the gun to safety, still staring down at his hands. Talon had forgotten things, too. They had forgotten that humans weren’t inherently lesser just because their lives were shorter. They had forgotten that survival was more important than domination.

But he was trying to make dragons appear a bit more sympathetic, and Madison was  _ six,  _ so he wasn’t about to get into details.

“Have you tried talking to any soldiers? Maybe if you explained it like that, then they wouldn’t try to kill you.”

“If I can get into talking range without getting shot at by a soldier, I’ll try that method,” he said dryly, smiling in spite of himself. “Besides, I’m talking to  _ you,  _ aren’t I? And you’re part of St. George.”

Madison shrugged and finished drying off her hair.

“Hey…” Cobalt said. Madison blinked at him. “Maddie, once you get back to St. George, you probably shouldn’t go talking about anything that I’ve told you,” Cobalt said. Madison cocked her head to the side. “Your parents won’t take it well to hear that not all dragons are evil. They might think that you’ve been… corrupted, or something. It won’t end well, and it could get you in trouble.”

“Oh,” she said softly. She looked down and brushed some hair out of her face. “But you’re  _ not  _ evil. You’re scary, and you’re strict, but you’re not  _ evil. _ ”

“I know that.”  _ But I’m not exactly good, either.  _ “And you know that, too. I think that’s enough, don’t you?”

Madison shrugged. “I guess.”

“Good.” Cobalt stood, checking his phone to make sure that it was synched up to the motion detector in the hall. He flicked off the lights and collapsed into his bed. 

“G’night, Miss d’Arc.”

“Good night, Leandro.”

Cobalt closed his eyes and let himself go lax.

_ I’m starting to like that name. _

 

~***~

 

When his phone beeped at 2:00 in the morning, signalling someone in the hallway, Cobalt nearly slept through it.

But damn, was he glad that he didn’t.

“Madison. Maddie, wake up!” Cobalt hissed, out of bed in an instant and shaking the girl awake. She started, eyes still glassy from exhaustion, and tried to roll over and go back to sleep. “ _ Madison d’Arc,  _ get the hell up!”

“What is it?” she mumbled. Cobalt swore vehemently and tore the blankets off of her. “Leandro…”

“Maddie, there’s a Viper coming towards us, we have about a minute before she’s here, you need to wake up,” Cobalt hissed. Madison blinked slowly. Then her eyes widened. “Yeah. I need you to hide in the bathroom. Shut the door and open the window, but don’t turn the light on. I’ll try to take care of it quickly, but if you hear anymore sounds of fighting than a few gunshots, climb out the window and run as far as you can. Okay, hatchling?”

“What?” she asked, eyes wide. Cobalt swore vehemently in a mix of draconic and spanish and picked Madison up by her shirt collar. “Hey! Hey, Leandro, stop!” He ignored her and shoved her into the bathroom. He could still feel the exhaustion in his limbs, only half fixed by adrenaline that was just starting to hit his brain.

“Stay quiet, and be ready to run,” Cobalt said softly. Madison nodded, even as she yawned. “Good.” He shut the door on her and turned towards the entrance to their room. There was a Viper coming towards him, and one of them would have to die.

He had recognized the Viper, too, and it made his heart ache over what was going to happen. It was Stealth, who had saved his life two years ago. Who was the closest thing he ever had to a friend within the organization— neither of them had been particularly  _ good  _ at it, but they had tried. She had saved his life. He had saved her reputation. She was almost nice, when she wasn’t killing.

And she was  _ very  _ good at killing.

Cobalt stuffed a few pillows beneath the covers of his bed and pressed himself into the corner where Stealth was least likely to check first, finger on the trigger of his gun. He couldn’t hear Madison. He prayed that she was awake enough to do what he had told her.

The door opened.

Stealth hadn’t changed since he had last seen her. She didn’t waste any of her movement, her expression stayed neutral and detached, and she seemed to bend the shadows around herself as she moved. Cobalt swallowed, hand shaking. She was a Viper. She didn’t have  _ friends _ . Whatever they had was a weak imitation. But she had also dragged him away from a St. George attack where he should have died. She had made him sit up to stop him from choking on his own blood. She had stayed with him during the first few days of his recovery, even going as far as keeping him distracted from the pain.

Stealth raised her knife and stabbed into the mound of pillows, where Cobalt’s neck would normally be. Cobalt raised his gun and shot through her head.

She dropped to the ground. He hadn’t given her a warning, or even let her see his face. It was exactly what she would’ve done.

Cobalt took a breath. Then another. And another. It was a fitting end. She hadn’t had enough time to be afraid, or be in any pain. Cobalt kept his gun drawn as he knelt down next to her and rolled her onto her back. Her eyes were open, still in the deadset neutral expression, but the hole blasted through her forehead had been a kill shot.

_ God, Stealth, I wish it hadn’t been you. _

Her eyes were already glazed with death, the dark amber-brown turning grey as he watched, unseeing and unfeeling. He closed them gently, shutting them off from the light forever. He pulled the blanket off of the bed to cover her body. 

“ _ Descanse en paz, Stealth, _ ” Cobalt whispered. He couldn’t bury her. That would be Talon’s job, when they found her. This was the most respect he could give.

Cobalt stood on shaking legs and rapped on the bathroom door.

“It’s over, Madison,” he said as levelly as he could. “It’s safe to come out.” He opened the door. 

Madison was standing by the open window, eyes wide and scared, even if they were still glassy and exhausted. Her hands were clenched into fists. She let out a visible breath, lips trembling.

“You took a long time after the gunshot,” she said, voice small and scared. “I thought…”

“I lived,” Cobalt said. “The Viper’s— she’s dead. She can’t hurt us, now.”

“Did she hurt you?”

“No. I’m fine,” Cobalt said. He tried to muster up a smile to reassure her, but he couldn’t manage to make it stick. His throat felt tight and swollen. “We need to move, though. The police are going to show up, and Talon will be close behind them. We need a few hundred miles between us and them before the end of the night.”

Madison gulped. Cobalt scrubbed a hand over his face and knelt down beside her.

“Here. I’ll carry you,” he whispered. Madison sniffed and hugged him tightly, letting Cobalt pick her up without protest. He kept his eyes firmly fixed on anything but the blanket that covered the woman who was the closest thing he had to a friend. Even if she hadn’t seen it the same way. They  _ weren’t  _ friends. Vipers didn’t have friends.

Cobalt walked into the humid night air of North Carolina. He walked a good distance like that, scanning the buildings around him for any signs of assassins or security. Madison, for once, didn’t speak. He could feel her heart pounding against her chest, and hear her raspy breaths against his shoulder.

“Was it fast?” Madison asked softly as Cobalt set her down and broke into a car that looked a few years older than he was. Cobalt swallowed and jerked his head towards the backseat.

“Yeah,” Cobalt rasped. “She didn’t feel a thing.”

“Does that make it any better?” she asked.

Cobalt set the car into drive. The engine sputtered and grated, but they started to move. Onto a new city, a new motel, one step closer to their destination. One step further away from Talon.

“Leandro?”

“I don’t know,” Cobalt whispered. “I honestly don’t know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spanish Translation: "Descanse en paz" translates to Rest in Peace; I don't know how accurate this is, since I'm not a native spanish speaker, but I checked it on several sites, so I did my best. If anyone wants to correct me, feel free.
> 
> The good news is that summer break is starting, so with any luck, my updates will be more frequent. However, since summer break has started, that also means that I'm taking on more writing projects, so it might end up staying the same.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is another short chapter, so I thought I'd give you a faster update. I really like this one, and am excited to finally share it with you.

Four days later, in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, Cobalt was beginning to consider going back to Canada to drop Madison off.

He had been keeping his ear to the ground, going through radio stations that he would sometimes use to keep track of St. George, and trying to find out dead spots in Talon activity that usually meant that St. George had a strong presence. He knew that the Chapterhouse was  _ somewhere  _ in Northeastern Mississippi, but he couldn’t narrow it down any further for the life of him. And he couldn’t focus all of his attention on finding the chapterhouse, because Talon was still after him, and he had killed a Viper, so they were most likely even more pissed than they already were.

He was stressed and paranoid, and he had every reason to be.

So when he and Madison walked back into the room that they had rented for the night, and there was a person waiting for them, Cobalt couldn’t be blamed for drawing his gun and firing before he stopped to ask questions.

The bullet went through the man’s leg, and he nearly crumpled to the ground before he managed to catch himself on the desk, screaming out an impressive string of profanities. Cobalt kept his gun raised, aiming at the man’s torso. Except… it  _ wasn’t  _ a man. 

“I come in peace! Please don’t shoot!”

It was a kid. Older than Madison, obviously, but a fair decade younger than himself. He would still be a hatchling, if he were a dragon. His clothing was crumpled and torn, and his hair was messy, pulled back in a haphazard ponytail. He looked a few minutes away from passing out, and  _ not  _ solely because of the bullet that Cobalt had just put through his leg.

“Bloody fucking…  _ fuck. _ ”

Madison clutched at Cobalt’s pantleg as she hid behind him. Cobalt slowly eased into the room, eyes darting to the corners to make sure that no one else was there. They were alone. It was just them, and this… child.

“Close and lock the door, hatchling,” Cobalt said softly. He kept his eyes trained the kid, who was putting most of his weight on the desk, and trying very hard not to look at the bullet wound. From the looks of it, it was probably his first time getting shot.

_ Well, he has a high pain tolerance, I’ll give him that. _

“Who are you, and why are you here?” Cobalt said coldly.

“I’m not here to hurt anyone, I want to help you, I’m not here on Talon’s orders, and—  _ ow—  _ I’ll explain everything if you put down the gun! You’ve already shot me once. I can’t exactly attack you and hope to win.” The kid said, putting his hands in front of his chest before he nearly collapsed and had to put a hand back on the desk. “Bloody hell.  _ Fuck.” _

Cobalt narrowed his eyes. He  _ did  _ recognize the kid, he realized. He had been in the meeting where Cobalt had received his mission that led to going rogue and everything else that had happened in the last two and a half weeks. He was the human in charge of hacking the St. George computers. But he obviously wasn’t fighting material. He couldn’t imagine why Talon would send him.

“You’re part of Talon,” Cobalt said. “I remember you. I’m not going back, and I’m not about to sit around and wait for someone to kill me.”

“I’m not part of Talon,” the kid said sharply. Cobalt raised an eyebrow. “I left the organization last week. I’ve been planning this for two years. Could you— could you lower the gun, please?”

“Okay...” Cobalt said slowly, keeping himself in front of Madison, just in case. He was intrigued, he had to admit— anyone who could get out of the organization had to be worth a few minutes. “You have my attention. Talk. But if Talon comes through the doors, the next bullet’s in your head.”

The kid paled considerably. “Okay. Cool cool. My— my name is Wesley Higgins. Or Wes. I don’t care either way. And there’s no need to introduce yourself; I know perfectly well who and what you are, Agent—”

“Leandro,” Cobalt interrupted. The kid— Wesley Higgins— furrowed his brow. Cobalt jerked his head back towards Madison.

“Agent Leandro. I…  _ don’t  _ know who’s hiding behind you.”

“She’s about a thousand times more important than you, right now,” Cobalt said flatly. “What do you want?”

“I…” Higgins trailed off, seeming to try to gather his thoughts. He took a few breaths and managed to stop staring at Madison. “I want to help you, hopefully, so you can help me. Simple symbiosis,” he said. “When I was younger, I made a few bad life decisions, got close with the wrong people, and ended up on Talon’s radar. I was… an anonymous independent computer specialist, for those who wanted certain information or access to databases.”

“You were a hacker,” Cobalt said. He saw something flash across Wesley’s face. Pride. The little human was a spitfire, then.

“Yeah. And I was good at what I did. Still am,” He looked down at his leg, which was steadily staining is jeans crimson. Not enough blood to have hit an artery, from what Cobalt could tell, but probably a bone or several. “It doesn’t actually hurt as much as I thought it would.”

“It’s the adrenaline. You’ll start feeling it in a few minutes,” Cobalt said. “Keep talking.”

“ _ Ow, _ ” Higgins whispered. Cobalt winced. It had probably been a rash decision to shoot him. But it had been a stressful week.

“I must have gotten myself known by the wrong person, or stolen from someone in Talon, because…” he swallowed and took a few breaths. He was getting incredibly pale. Maybe he was anemic. “About two weeks after I turned fourteen, they kidnapped me. Posed as Police Officers, said that if I didn’t go peacefully, they’d ruin both me  _ and  _ my parents. They shut me in a room, put me in front of a computer, and told me that if I did what they told me, then they’d let me go back home. And...” His expression soured. “I was  _ fourteen.  _ I was scared. I didn’t know shit. I figured out that I was trafficked after the first month, but it took another two years before I knew the truth about what Talon was. That was when I met Roth. He told me… it was a  _ reward _ for my good work.” He gave a cold laugh. “At that point, I knew that I was in for life.”

“So you decided to escape.”

“The bastards kidnapped me when I was fourteen. I’ve been their bloody slave for nearly five years. Like hell was I going to stay.”

Cobalt winced. “Don’t swear in front of the six-year-old.”

Higgins looked back down at Madison, and then up at Cobalt. His confusion was a bit amusing, if it weren’t for the stress that Cobalt was under. There was an ex-Talon elite hacker in the same room as him. Said ex-Talon elite hacker was decorating the carpet with his blood.

_ Whoops. _

“Okay,” Wes said. “Look. It was hard enough to get out, and to make sure that Talon wouldn’t threaten my parents to get back to me. But…” he swallowed. He was starting to shake with the effort to keep himself upright. “I can’t do this on my own. I don’t have the survival skills that you have. Someone will kill me or drag me back, and I don’t want either option.”

“So you tracked me down for protection,” Cobalt said. He shook his head. “I don’t need a human tagging along and slowing me down.”

“Um…” Wes looked back at Madison. “You already have a— okay, I’ll just ask this now,  _ where  _ did you come across a six-year-old?”

“We met in the St. George Chapterhouse. I thought that she was going to tell the soldiers where I was, so I knocked her out, and I couldn’t exactly leave her to run to her parents the moment she woke up, so I took her with me. Not one of my brightest decisions, but here we are. I’m trying to get down to the Eastern Chapterhouse to drop her off.”

Wesley’s eyes widened, and he couldn’t seem to find any words for a few seconds. “I’m sorry,  _ what? _ ”

“It’s been a long few weeks,” Cobalt said. 

“She’s part of  _ St. George? _ ”

“Yes,” Cobalt said. “Either way, my point stands. Madison is a temporary arrangement that neither of us asked for. I don’t need  _ another  _ human child following me around.”

“I’m not a child, first of all.”

“Really? How old are you?” Cobalt asked. Wesley broke eye contact and rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s what I thought. Look, kid. I can patch you up, make sure you don’t bleed out, but then you need to  _ go. _ ”

Wesley took a breath and set his jaw. “Look. I’m not just some stupid kid. I can help you, too. As I said:  _ symbiosis. _ ”

Doubtful. He was painfully young, and looked exhausted from being on the run for mere days. Still, he had lived for this long. And he was keeping his calm surprisingly well, all things considered; talking face to face with a tired dragon, having no way to defend himself, being shot…

Besides. He had escaped from Talon without getting killed. Anyone with that much grit was worth  _ listening _ to.

“How?”

“I told you. I’m good at what I do. I know Talon froze your accounts. I can open them up easily. Move the offshore and make them untrackable. It’ll make everything a lot easier if you have easy access to money.”

Cobalt couldn’t help but gape.

“What? You think that I haven’t hacked into Talon databases before? I needed to get enough blackmail on them so they wouldn’t try to hurt my family. This would be easy,” his lips twitched, and he took a USB out of his jacket pocket. “In fact, I already have something that I think you’d find interesting,  _ Leandro. _ ”

“What is it?”

“It’s everything Talon has on you,” Wesley said. “Your hatching date, assimilation report, missions, allies… everything. I got the files and then scrubbed them from Talon’s servers. Congrats, Leandro, you’re officially a ghost to them.” He set the USB down on the desk and curled his hand into a fist. Cobalt picked up the USB. His entire life was between his fingers, and because of this kid, he was a bit more impossible to track down.

“Y-you know that you were supposed to die in your last mission, right?” Wesley muttered. His eyes darted to Madison, and he didn’t press any further. “But the file that they wanted you to get was real. Too bad it disappeared.”

“Uh-huh. I suppose that you had nothing to do with its disappearance,” Cobalt said. Wesley cracked a smile. His veins were a stark blue against his skin, and his pant leg was completely saturated with blood. “Sit down. I’ll fix the hole in your leg.” He smirked and ruffled the kids’ hair. Wesley swatted his hand away and nearly collapsed, only to be caught by Cobalt and guided into the chair. “Can’t have my new partner dying on me, can I?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wes is finally here!!! A bit more injured than usual, but what can I say, the tropes are hungry. I have a reputation to uphold. (10,712 words without inuring anyone. Kinda.)
> 
> Please drop a review. It would make my day. We still have three more chapters and an epilogue (which I have now finished), and the more feedback I get, the more enthusiastic I am about editing.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back. There was no quick update, but I finally wrote a chapter that was over 2K words, so I think it's worth it. Writing has recently felt akin to pulling teeth, so thanks for sticking with me through it. I'll be back to normal as soon as possible.

“So I have your painkillers, ace bandages, cane, and a new set of clothes. Painkillers are once every eight hours as-needed, ace bandages are once a day, and I’d advise you not to walk without a cane for the next few weeks. The clothes are to replace the ones that you bled over. You with me?”

“Yep.”

“Everything you own will fit inside of this backpack. Anything more and it slows us down.”

“I don’t have many possessions to begin with.”

“Good. Sorry for shooting you.”

“Do I get an apology for you making me babysit a six-year-old?” Wesley asked. 

“Excuse me, I’m a delight to be around!”

Cobalt smirked and handed the cane to Wesley, who took it gratefully. They were in a new motel, in a new town somewhere in southern Mississippi. Cobalt had needed to get supplies and set up security, and he didn’t want to take Madison, so he left Wesley in charge of making sure that she didn’t run away or set herself on fire.

Madison had taken to Wesley Higgins in the eleven hours they had known him. Maybe it was simply because he was another human, or because he was a teenager— eighteen years old, nineteen in five months. She also seemed fascinated that he worked with computers. Too bad that Wesley was exhausted from bloodloss and probably pain, as well. The bullet had torn through one of his bones, which Cobalt had tried to set to the best of his ability, but he wasn’t sure how well he had succeeded.

One of them needed to learn proper, long-term first aid if they planned on working together.

“Do you not like kids?”

“No, I do not,” Wesley said. “She asked to braid my hair.  _ Twice. _ ”

“Did you let her?”

“I don’t like people touching my hair.”

“But you’d look so pretty with a braid!” Madison said. “What’s the point of having long hair if you don’t do anything interesting with it?”

Cobalt pursed his lips to try to conceal a smile. Wesley’s hair  _ was  _ pretty long, for a boy’s haircut. It came down past his shoulders, drawn back in a low ponytail, and even though Cobalt could tell that he hadn’t slept in several days, he had  _ definitely  _ brushed his hair in that time.

“Can I  _ please  _ braid it?”

“Bloody hell,” Wesley muttered. He closed his laptop and stood, swaying slightly before he remembered that he had a cane to help support his weight. “I’m going to take a shower before I forget to. Wouldn’t want to impose on… whatever your dynamic is.”

“Oh, Wesley Higgins,” Cobalt shook his head and smirked. “You asked to join up with me. It’s  _ ‘whatever  _ **_our_ ** _ dynamic is’,  _ now. Get used to it.”

Wesley let out a slightly childish huff and limped to the bathroom. A moment later, Cobalt heard the shower turn on.

“I like him,” Madison said. Cobalt snorted. “He knows a lot of things. Back home, no one let me learn things about computers, ‘cause they think I’m too young. But he explained what he was doing. He says that he’s finding the Chapterhouse in Mississippi. By  _ radios. _ ”

“That he is,” Cobalt said. “You have to be very skilled to be noticed by Talon. And that’s why he’s here, with us. Because he’ll help you get home.” Madison furrowed her brow and wrung her hands, peering down at her combat boots. Cobalt sighed and sat next to her. “What’s your question, Miss d’Arc?”

“Does Talon usually kidnap people?” Madison asked. Cobalt cringed. “In the Order, they say that people who work in Talon sell their souls, and because they work for dragons, they’re evil.”

“Back on the evil thing, huh?”

“But Wes didn’t  _ want  _ to work for them. Is he a weird case, or something?”

“You’re calling him Wes already.”

“He told me that’s what his friends called him before Talon,” Madison said.

“Oh god, did you pester him over his life story? That’s not a nice thing to do, stuff like that can be sensitive—”

“Answer the question, Leandro!”

Cobalt took a deep breath and made a note to apologize to the new hatchling for the behavior of his younger, chatier, more inquisitive hatchling. Why did she ask so many hard questions? She was  _ six.  _ Couldn’t she just ask where babies came from like a normal six-year-old?

“Okay, humans in Talon, humans in Talon, that’s… certainly an interesting topic to cover at 9:45. Does this count as your bedtime story?”

“Nope.”

_ Goddammit.  _ “So. Dragons, for all of our power and wealth, do not have a very high population. In order to form an organization as big as Talon, we had to include humans. Most of those humans do join willingly. Talon promises them power or wealth or… things like that. It kind of is like selling your soul. Other humans, though, have more of a moral compass, or just don’t want to take the risk. In those cases, Talon finds things they can take advantage of to make them join the organization.”

Cobalt swallowed and rubbed the back of his neck. That had been part of his job. Find the smoking gun in an organization or skeletons in someone’s closet so Talon could sweep in and force the humans to bend to their will or go up in flames. How many Wesley Higgins had he created over his career?

“That’s called blackmail, or exploitation. In that case, humans don’t have much of a choice, because both choices are equally bad. And then, in extreme cases… they do kidnap people. Like Wes. Bring them back to the organization and tell them to do what they say or they’ll die.”

Madison’s jaw dropped. “Then— then how does the Order figure out which one’s which?”

“They don’t,” Cobalt shrugged. “I don’t think that they even know there’s a difference. They think everyone joined willingly, just like they think that every dragon is a part of Talon. So they all die.”

“No, but that’s— that’s wrong, that’s  _ bad!  _ They wouldn’t kill everyone! And you said that not all dragons were bad, but they’re out there, kidnapping children! That’s also evil!”

“Please don’t cry.”

“I’m not crying!” Madison yelled. “And the Order isn’t evil!”

“No. They’re not,” Cobalt said. He didn’t quite believe it, but it’s what she needed to hear. “They just don’t know any better. Talon… the organization has done a lot of  _ awful  _ things. It’s reasonable for the Order to assume that the entire thing is evil, full of evil people. It’s not their fault. But the truth is that most of the evil things that Talon does is decided by a handful of people. Everyone else is just… compliant. For varying reasons. Some of those reasons are good, and others are bad.” Cobalt swallowed and brushed some hair out of Madison’s face. “And that’s just how the world works, sometimes.”

“Then the world is  _ wrong. _ ”

Cobalt nodded. “It seems like that. But it’s not something that you need to worry about, right now. You’re young, and you still have time to figure out what you think the truth is. Let’s just focus on getting you home, for now.” Madison sniffed and wiped her eyes before she could start crying. “C’mon. No more tears. It’s bedtime. Do you… want a hug, or something?”

“Yeah.” Madison nodded. Cobalt wrapped his arms around her and let her bury her face in his shirt. “Can you tell me a story?”

“Um… I’m running out of stories.”

“Please?”

Cobalt sighed. “Okay, okay… happy bedtime story… there was once this guy named Achilles, who lived in the land of Greece. At the time, Greece was at war with the Trojans, whose leader had kidnapped Helen of Sparta, the fairest lady in the land. Achilles was a brave and formidable warrior because his mother was a Goddess, and she had made him invincible when he was young by dipping him a sacred river. Only a part of his heel could be harmed by a mortal weapon…”

Cobalt continued to talk softly, trying to remember the story he had been forced to read when he was fifteen. He hadn’t cared for The Illiad, and it definitely wasn’t six-year-old friendly, but Madison nodded off within ten minutes. He tucked her into bed and turned the lights off. Only the lamp on the desk remained lit. 

“It’s cute. What you two have.”

Cobalt turned towards the voice. Wesley smiled and limped back to the desk. His hair was down and soaking wet, which made him look completely different. He could see why he kept it back.

“You’re just jealous.”

“Maybe. I didn’t see much of my parents, the older I got,” Wesley opened up his computer and clicked a few keys. “It’s sweet that you’re trying to be nice to her. With any luck, it’ll save her some therapy.”

Cobalt snorted and put a hand on the back of Wesley’s chair to better see the computer monitor. “Unlikely. She heard me kill a Viper; there’s no coming back from that. How’s the search going?”

“It’s going. Slowly. Talon intelligence says that the Eastern Chapterhouse is in northern Mississippi, and the Order doesn’t put chapter houses near large cities, so there are five areas that I’m scanning for their usual radio frequencies. Once I get a triangulation, I’ll have the Chapterhouse location within five miles, and I can use satellite imagery to get the exact coordinates. It should take a week at most. The Order’s gotten paranoid, but they’re still practically technology-illiterate.”

“Good. The sooner she gets home, the better,” Cobalt said. Something in his chest contracted at the statement. She _ had _ to go back to the Order. It was her home. But when she went back to the Order, she’d be raised to be a dragon killer. She’d hate them, just like she was supposed to. And, chances were, she’d be killed by a dragon.

Maybe by  _ him,  _ if she chased revenge.

“You good, mate?” Wesley asked.

“It’s not my job  _ or _ my place to care about her,” Cobalt responded. His voice came out solid, even to his own ears. “It’s her home.”

Wesley nodded and turned back to his computer. His hands were still shaking subtly, as they had been ever since Cobalt shot him, but he was holding up well. Better than he expected any civilian to.

“It’s good to let her go back home,” Wesley said after a silence. “Trust me. She may be friendly towards you now because you killed that Viper for her, but at the end of the day she didn’t come here willingly. She’s not a pet.” He paused and rooted through his backpack until he found the painkillers. He swallowed the pills dry and put them away. “Neither am I, by the way.”

“Of course not. This is a partnership,” Cobalt responded. The words felt strange on his tongue— he worked alone,  _ always.  _ There were very few exceptions, and those exceptions were temporary. Yet, he was teaming with some eighteen-year-old  _ human  _ for an indefinite period of time.

“Wesley…” Cobalt said slowly. “You mentioned the file that I had to get from St. George servers. I didn’t know that it was real— figured that it was just an excuse to catch me in an explosion. Now that you’re no longer bleeding out—”

“And whose fault was that?” Wesley muttered to himself.

“I apologized for that. What’s the file?”

Wesley grinned toothily and turned to his computer, pulling up a file with a few keystrokes.

“It’s locations,” he said as Cobalt peered over his shoulder. “Of probable sleeper agents.”

“Hatchlings doing their assimilation training,” Cobalt breathed. “Does St. George still have this—”

“I scrubbed it from their servers,” Wesley said. “This is the last copy of the file.” He turned to face Cobalt, eyes shining despite his pallor. Cobalt felt his breath catch, the hintings of a plan in the back of his mind. “This is a big opportunity. We could get there before Talon does and get those hatchlings out of the system. They’d be free before they got too wrapped up inside of the organization, and it would weaken Talon to have less manpower. Dragon-power. They get spread out too thin, and they won’t have the resources to track down rogues as efficiently as they can now.”

“Or kidnap other fourteen-year-olds?” Cobalt asked.

“That too,” Wesley shrugged. “The way I see it, I’m going to die young either way, and so are you. So we might as well use the time we have to screw over the organization as much as possible and help get others out before they get in too deep.”

Cobalt didn’t let it show on his face, but something warm and nearly  _ giddy  _ sprouted in his chest. If he could hide  _ himself  _ from Talon, he could learn how to hide others from Talon. They could establish safehouses, make fake identities, and get hatchlings  _ out.  _ They’d be free. He could teach them.

“This would take years,” Cobalt whispered softly, looking Wesley in the eye. “You know that, right? And if Talon is pissed with us, now, I can only imagine how angry they’d be if we started taking hatchlings.”

“They’re already gunning for us, what’s one more crime on the list?” Wesley said. “Besides,” he smirked, and jerked his head toward Madison, “I think you have a way with kids, Leandro.” 

Cobalt snorted, but there wasn’t anything he could say to deny it. Madison snored softly from her bed, wrapped in her blankets like a burrito. He was attached to her, there was no denying it.

He… he didn’t want to return her to the Order.

“Is she going to be okay, when she goes back?” Wesley asked softly. “I know that St. George doesn’t approve of non-violent interactions with dragons, but she’s one of them. It wasn’t her choice to get brought down here.”

“Yeah,” Cobalt rasped. “With any luck, they’ll… give her therapy, or whatever, and she’ll go back to hating dragons before they decide that she’s corrupted.”

Wesley nodded and sighed, fiddling with the necklace that he wore. Cobalt hadn’t noticed it before— probably because it wasn’t flashy enough to attract a dragon’s eye. It was a tarnished silver chain with a six-pointed star pendant made of dark metal. Wes caught him looking and stopped toying with it, looking away.

“Family gift,” he muttered. “I know it’s a safety hazard, but it’s the last thing I have from them.”

Cobalt swallowed. “Oh.”

They were silent for a while, as Wesley continued to type away at his computer, a satellite map on the screen as well as a page of long code that Cobalt couldn’t understand for the life of him. Wesley’s hands were shaking, and he shivered every now and again. The clock read 10:30.

“Hey, kid. You should take the bed for tonight,” Cobalt nudged him. “You look like you haven’t slept since you left Talon, and you lost a good deal of blood. I’m going to need you at your best, especially if we’re going to be starting some… rogue underground, or whatever.”

“I’m not tired. And if I get tired, I can sleep on the floor or at the desk. I’ve done it plenty of times before in Talon.”

“Not with a bullet wound, you won’t. I do want you to be able to walk without a cane in the near-future, and having you sleep on the floor isn’t going to help with that. Until you heal up, you can sleep in a real bed.”

“Really not tired, Leandro.”

Cobalt put his hands on the desk and leaned forward. Wesley stiffened, and he stopped typing.

“Wesley Higgins,” Cobalt said softly. “I have just spent the last few weeks taking care of a six-year-old. You are no match for me.”

Wesley was silent for a long moment, still frozen in place.

“I think I’ll just close down these programs, now,” he whispered. Cobalt smiled, stifling the urge to ruffle his hair like he did with Madison. Wesley wasn’t a child. He was a partner. 

As he closed his laptop and turned off the light, muttering a  _ good night,  _ Cobalt decided that it would be nice to have one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's a fanfiction without ETHICAL DILEMMAS? i'm sensing another theme with my writing... this is my legacy...


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a daunting chapter for me because of pacing/length, but I got a huge influx of support from y'all, so I wanted to get this chapter out for everyone. Thank you so much for your support, it means a lot to me! Now, onto the story.

“God, I forgot how paranoid St. George was,” Wesley groaned from his desk. “How many cell towers do they have to bounce things off of? I know perfectly well that they’re  _ not  _ in Arkansas, so they can stop trying to fool me.”

Cobalt raised an eyebrow and looked up from braiding Madison’s hair. “You can still do it, right?”

“Yeah, I’ve done it before, it’s just…  _ so  _ time consuming. Near-impossible to get a proper triangulation, if I weren’t me,” Wesley said. He scrubbed a hand over his face and glared at his laptop.

“And how’s our other thing going?” Cobalt asked. He gave a tug on Madison’s braid and let her stand up. She scampered over to Wesley and climbed onto his lap, ignoring his protests and a startled shriek when she jostled the bulletwound. Cobalt snickered.

“Well, I’m going through the list. There’s definitely Talon activity in…” he looked down at Madison, who was watching his computer with rapt attention. “The city in Mississippi, so they’re probably preparing to move in soon. But I’m not sure if we should go  _ there.  _ We’ll want to get as far away from this area as possible after we drop this one off.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell them anything,” Madison said, eyes wide and genuine. “How are you doing the— the radio thingy?”

“The  _ radio thingy? _ ”

“Yeah. You said that you were finding the chapterhouse using their radios. How do you do that?” Madison asked. Wesley looked back at Cobalt helplessly, which only made Cobalt snicker harder. “And what’s the list? Is it something that the Order can’t know about? Why is Talon in Mississippi?”

“Help,” Wesley whispered desperately. 

“Don’t look at me, Wesley. You’re the human, you can socialize better with them than I can.”

“Oh! If you don’t drop me off until  _ after  _ you do the thing in Mississippi, can I know about it?”

Cobalt sputtered. Madison turned away from the computer and looked over Wesley’ shoulder at him with wide eyes, sparkling and hopeful. Cobalt looked away.

“Don’t you want to go home, hatchling? Your sister and parents are going to be worried about you, and it’s risky to stay with us.”

“Yeah, but I don’t  _ want  _ to leave, yet,” she whined. She shifted in Wesley’ lap, which made the human groan and bite down on his index finger. Cobalt cringed. She was probably putting direct pressure on the bulletwound. “You’re really nice, and you explain things really well, and when I go back, they won’t listen to me when I tell them that dragons are good.”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Cobalt interrupted. He stood and picked Madison up off of Wesley, who gave a quiet, relieved  _ thank you.  _ He set her down on the ground and crouched down to meet her eye. “You  _ cannot  _ tell them that dragons are good. Understand, hatchling?”

“Why  _ not? _ ”

“Because…”  _ God, how do I explain this?  _ “Look. They’re not going to believe you, no matter what you say. It sucks, but it’s the truth. And if you press the matter, they’re going to think that we corrupted you. They could hurt you, or your family.”

“They would  _ not. _ ”

“They’d kill Wesley, wouldn’t they?” Cobalt asked. Wesley made a vague noise of pained disapproval, probably for being dragged into the conversation without permission. “We went over this a few nights ago, remember? Because Wes works with dragons, they think that he’s… tarnished.”

“What does tarnish—”

“Unholy,” Wes supplied.

“Yes. They think that Wes is unholy, because he works with dragons, and he likes them, so he needs to die. If they know that you like dragons, or even that you think that some of them aren’t evil, they’re also going to think that you’re unholy. I doubt that they’d kill you, because you’re six, but it would make your life hard, Madison. The best thing to do would be to tell the Order you were kidnapped and leave it at that. Let them decide their own conclusions.”

“That would be lying.”

Cobalt sighed. “Sometimes, you have to lie to keep yourself safe. It’s one of the ugly truths of life. I’m sure that the gods won’t fault you.”

Madison pouted. “Can I at least see what you’re doing in Mississippi?”

Cobalt groaned. There was no getting out of this conversation in tact. He didn’t want anyone in the Order to know about the possibility of a rogue underground, even if that someone was a six-year-old who no one would trust, anyway. But… he really didn’t want her to go back to the Order. He had just told her that she couldn’t tell the Order about dragons, and he knew that she couldn’t, because it wouldn’t change anything, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t want her to  _ know,  _ just for herself, that dragons weren’t the evil monsters that she thought they were.

_ She isn’t mine. She doesn’t belong in this life. I can’t forget that. _

“Sorry, hatchling. It’ll have to be a mystery.”

 

~***~

 

“I’m sure that my sister would agree with me, if you talked to her.”

“I’m not talking to anyone in the Order,” Cobalt said firmly. Madison sighed. For a moment, Cobalt considered sighing back louder, but then he’d only prove that he was just a childish as a six-year-old. 

_ Well, technically juvenile dragons are considered children and still have to report to their trainers unless they’re special, so I still hold the right to do it. _

Cobalt squashed the thought down. He may be a child in dragon terms, but he was an adult by human standards, and he was the only adult in the room, other than the teenager who could still be mistaken for a goddamn hatchling.

“Look. I know that they’re your family, and you want to trust them. And you should trust them. But I’m still a dragon, and they wouldn’t like me.”

“Yeah, but you’re not part of Talon. If you explained it like you explained it to me, then they’d realize that only  _ Talon  _ is bad.”

Cobalt gave a soft groan. “I find that talking to soldiers doesn’t go well. They tend to enjoy shooting things more than actual conversation.” He gave her a pointed look. “Aren’t you supposed to be getting your teeth brushed? It’s your bedtime.”

“Wes is allowed to stay up late.”

“Wesley Higgins is eighteen. He’s allowed to set his own bedtime.”

“Wesley Higgins doesn’t want to be part of this conversation,” Wesley muttered.

“Wesley Higgins needs to drink some water if you expect to ever recover from blood loss. Humans heal so  _ slowly  _ compared to dragons. Holy hell,” Cobalt said. He narrowed his eyes slightly. “How  _ aren’t  _ you thirsty? When I get shot, all that I can think about is water for the next few days.”

“I have a job to do. The sooner I find this Chapterhouse, the sooner that Madison can go back to her family. That’s what we all want, right?”

Cobalt felt something in his face twitch at the words, and the hole in his chest extend its reach.

“ _ I  _ wanna know what else you guys are looking for in Mississippi,” Madison said.

“Maddie,  _ please  _ brush your teeth. We’re getting up early tomorrow to move out. I’ve already had to kill one Viper, and I’d rather not repeat that experience.” 

“ _ Fiiiine, _ ” Madison said, dragging her feet towards the bathroom. Cobalt breathed a sigh of relief and went to the vanity to fill up a cup of water. He missed certain things about Talon. Having enough money to buy decent food. Actual, secure safe houses that he could crash in. Being able to buy water in a gallon instead of drinking from the tap. He set it down beside Wesley, who didn’t even look up from the task at hand.

“Kid. The reason you feel cranky and lethargic is because your body needs to replace the blood that you lost.”

“I’m sorry to inform you of this, mate, but this is my default personality.”

“I need you functioning and able to run, if necessary. Drink the water,” Cobalt said. Wesley paused, downed the entire cup, and turned back to his program. 

_ Well, at least I know he’s focused. _

Madison came out of the bathroom after a few minutes. Cobalt flicked off the main light and turned on the desk lamp. For a few moments, the only sounds in the room came from Wes’ laptop and the faulty air conditioning. 

“Leandro?”

“Go to sleep, hatchling.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know…” she sat up. 

Cobalt sighed softly and sat down beside her. He might be returning her to the Order, but he couldn’t leave her at the foot of a genocidal organization right after she had realized that dragons weren’t all evil. He had to at least give her an explanation for everything.

“I wish I could change things,” she whispered.

“Yeah, so do I,” Cobalt replied. “Look, Maddie. The world isn’t fair. It’s not fair for humans or dragons or… whatever else is out there. And some things are too big to change by yourself. Trust me. I don’t want you to get hurt when you go back to the Order, so I’m _begging_ you not to tell them that dragons are good.” He took a breath. “But, when you get older, if you still believe what you believe now, then you can decide for yourself what you want to do. If you want to stay in the Order and try to change it from the inside, or if you want to leave, or if you find some place in between. But try to _wait._ Okay?”

Madison nodded solemnly.

“And I can’t tell you what we’re doing after you go back home, but I can say this. I want to get as many dragons out of Talon as possible, so they won’t have to grow up in the organization. They’ll be like me.”  _ Just hopefully nicer. _

Madison sniffed and wiped her eyes. “’M gonna miss you.”

“Yeah. I’ll miss you, too, hatchling. But let’s not get all teary, now,” Cobalt said softly. “This isn’t a goodbye, yet. Now go get some sleep.”

Madison nodded, and Cobalt stood up. Within five minutes, he could hear her soft snoring. Cobalt began to go through his weaponry, sharpening his knife out of habit before stripping down the gun. He needed to get more ammunition. And more food. Feeding himself was hard enough, let alone a six-year-old and an eighteen-year-old. If they picked up another hatchling, it would be even harder. Thank God Wesley had made good on his promise of moving Cobalt’s money offshore.

They were going to need real safehouses, as well. He might be able to survive by going from one motel to another, but a hatchling didn’t have years of training and even more years of fieldwork for them to survive.

Maybe they  _ should _ skip the hatchling in Mississippi. It might be smarter to take their time and make sure that they could keep themselves and the hatchling safe. And also make sure his partner could walk.

Speaking of which.

“You changed your bandages, right?” Cobalt asked.

“Yeah,” Wesley muttered. “Around noon.”

“Good,” Cobalt began to reassemble the gun, making sure that every piece slid into place smoothly. He didn’t want anything to jam in a high-stakes situation. “Do you know how to use a weapon, Wesley?”

Wesley gave him a strange look. “I feel that Talon wouldn’t want their prisoners to know how to shoot a gun. It might give us the wrong idea.”

Cobalt smirked. “Smartass.”

Wesley grinned toothily, eyes sparking with an energy that was beginning to grow familiar. Then something dinged on his computer, and he snapped back to it, hunching further over the keys as his brow furrowed with concentration. Cobalt leaned over to see what he was doing, but Wesley slapped his hand the moment it made contact with his shoulder. There was a flinch right afterward and a muttered  _ ‘sorry’,  _ but Wesley seemed too focused on his task to register that he had just slapped a dragon.

_ It’s a good thing you’re out of Talon, kid. I doubt you would have made it far before someone decided that you had too much of a personality for their needs. It’s a miracle that you lived for this long, or got so high in the ranks. _

“I have coordinates,” he announced after three tense minutes. Cobalt drew in a sharp breath. “I know exactly where the Eastern Chapterhouse is.”

“That’s…” Cobalt didn’t know what to say. It had taken weeks to get as close as they were, and this human who was still hatchling had figured out where the Eastern Chapterhouse was in seventy-two hours. 

And now, he was going to take Madison back home.

That was a good thing.

“That’s great,” he said. “You’re good at what you do.”

“I’m well aware,” Wesley replied. “So what’s our plan to get her to the Chapterhouse without being shot?”

Cobalt sighed, looking at the satellite map Wesley had pulled up. The Chapterhouse was on top of a grassy plateau. There was a treeline about a mile away from it, but no cover beyond that. He couldn’t drop her off at the gates without getting his head blown off and made into a trophy. 

“You’re not going anywhere near it,” Cobalt said. “You can’t exactly run if things go south.”

“That’s  _ not  _ my fault.”

“I’m  _ aware,  _ and I’m  _ sorry.  _ God, you’re never going to let me live that down, are you?” Cobalt groaned. “ _ Anyway.  _ You drive maybe five miles from the gates. I’ll take her to the edge of the woods and send up a flare. By the time they find her, we’ll be gone.” There was a slight silence between them. “You can  _ drive,  _ right?”

“Yes, I can drive. Stick shift and automatic.”

“Wonderful,” Cobalt nodded. “We probably shouldn’t try to find the hatchling in Mississippi. We’ll have St. George _and_ Talon on our backs, and… I just really hate the southeast. Air made of hot soup.”

“Did you live in the Yucatan rainforest?”

“How do you…”

“You had a file in Talon. I stole that file.”

“Right. Well, Wesley Higgins, I will complain about the Yucatan, and I will complain about the southeast United States. At least the Yucatan Peninsula has tree coverage. Anyway. We can set up a few safe houses and then try to get a network operational. We might have to travel with the hatchlings for a while.”

“I can deal with that,” Wesley shrugged. “Do  _ you  _ think that you can put up with multiple teenagers in close quarters?”

“You’re a teenager. You can deal with them.”

“ _ Excuse  _ me?” Wesley asked, incredulous. Cobalt smirked. “You’re the dragon. And you can put up with Madison well enough. Trust me, you’ll be much better with them than I ever could be. I can barely stand humans, these days.”

Cobalt snorted and watched as Wesley continued to work into the night. His eyes kept flitting back to Madison, dead to the world around her. She belonged with the Order. She was raised with stability and routine, with rigidity and formalities, that Cobalt couldn’t ever provide. She was raised to be a  _ soldier.  _ She didn’t belong with him.

So why did the thought of dropping her off at the Eastern Chapterhouse feel like betraying her? 

The Order was her home. They weren’t going to hurt her for being kidnapped, even if she started spouting things about how dragons weren’t evil. They’d probably call it stockholm syndrome. It probably  _ was  _ stockholm syndrome. But it still hurt to think of her alone in the Order, with no one to defend her opinion except for herself.

Cobalt shook his head. Things were so much more simple when the Order was nothing but genocidal, religious nutcases.

“I’ll be in the shower,” Cobalt muttered, grabbing his duffel bag. He needed to think, and not be around humans for a few minutes. Everything was  _ so  _ simple when he was in Talon. He didn’t need to have ethics or morals. He didn’t have to choose between saving a six-year-old and letting one of his friends live. He didn’t have to run from Vipers in the first place. He was going to have a future, a  _ life. _

Cobalt sighed as he stepped into the burning stream of water. He was going to have a  _ very  _ short life. It would take a miracle to get him past thirty. 

_ All  _ of them were going to have short lifespans, even by human standards. He and Wes were both rogues, wanted by both organizations, and he doubted that anyone in the Order had a long life expectancy. Cobalt hadn’t expected to ever live as long as a wyrm— he was a basilisk, and basilisks knew that they’d live fast and die faster— but he had hoped to break one hundred years and become an official adult.

_ First thing’s first. We’re going to get Madison to the eastern Chapterhouse whether you want to or not, and whether she wants to or not. That’s all that we need to worry about right now.  _ Cobalt reminded himself firmly as he tried to get the dirt out of his hair. He hadn’t taken a shower in three days, and it was obvious. It took a fair thirty minutes before he could count himself as clean and dressed in new clothes. He considered collecting the dirty clothes and finding a laundry building, but he didn’t want to leave Wesley and Madison alone. Wesley was obviously good at what he did, but he couldn’t use a gun, and he didn’t have survival instincts quite yet. Nothing that he couldn’t fix eventually, but nothing he could fix at the current moment.

Cobalt checked the time over Wesley’s shoulder— it was creeping up on 10:30, and they didn’t have anything else to do. The security was hooked up to both his phone and Wesley’s computer, and Wesley had told him that the hotel room that they had rented was marked as unoccupied on everything except the paper file that the managers kept.

He sighed and dragged a hand through his still-drying hair. His quality of sleep had taken a nosedive ever since he left Talon,  _ obviously,  _ but it was worse now that Wesley and Madison were taking the beds. He had been sleeping upright, against the wall, his gun and a knife beside him. And he was tired.

“Hey, kid,” Cobalt tapped Wesley’s shoulder. “Could we share the bed for tonight? I want to get some real sleep before I go poke St. George with a stick tomorrow.”

“Hmm? Oh, sure. Whatever. I’m not tired, anyways.” Wesley didn’t turn away from the computer. Normally, Riley would let it go— this wasn’t Madison. This was an adult, who had probably worked worse hours while in Talon. He had heard of certain elite hackers who would spend days awake to crack an encryption.

But he really needed the human functioning. And the human was injured. Cobalt knew what happened someone didn’t properly rest when injured— everything from his leg cramping too badly to move it to sepsis. Cobalt couldn’t cure sepsis.

“Don’t make me set a bedtime for you, Wesley,” Cobalt warned softly. Wesley snorted. “Don’t give me that.  _ I’m  _ the one who shot you. I know what you need for recovery. If your immune system is compromised, it  _ will  _ get infected, and I don’t want to deal with that. I’m not a medic.”

Wesley groaned, sounding  _ incredibly  _ childish for a moment. Cobalt decided not to point it out for diplomacy’s sake.

“Let me finish this,” he said. “I’ll be done in less than an hour.”

“Fine. Wake me if you find anything pressing. And take a shower.”

Cobalt collapsed into the bed and checked his phone again, just to make sure that it was on. Sleep didn’t come for a while, with the still-unfamiliar sounds of a whirring computer and the faulty air conditioning, and the much more familiar snoring in the other bed. 

He’d never realized how easy it was to get used to having people to care about. Talon claimed that dragons were naturally solitary creatures, and only united due to the threat of humanity, but now, Cobalt wasn’t so sure. He would  _ miss  _ Madison. He hadn’t ever actively missed anyone before, but he’d miss his loud and inconvenient hatchling who didn’t even know his real name.

_ But she was never mine to miss. _

_ It’s time for her to go. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, I think that the worst part of editing is making sure that Cobalt refers to Wes as Wesley. The pain of formal relationships.
> 
> I don't know how clear my schedule will be this week, so there probably won't be an update until next Monday at the earliest. That's just how life goes, unfortunately. But that will be the LAST chapter before the epilogue.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SUPER late. That's just sometimes how it goes, I guess, and I think it'll be worth the wait. It's over 3,000 words, this time.

Cobalt didn’t know  _ how,  _ but his hand had somehow managed to get tangled in Wesley’s necklace while they were asleep.

To Wesley’s credit, he didn’t get flustered, or make any remarks. He just got up and asked for help changing his bandages and checking for infection. The wound was red and inflamed, still leaking out clear fluid from cracks in the scabbing, but it seemed like it was more from irritation than infection. He didn’t take any painkillers that morning, muttering something about how him and cars and painkillers weren’t a good combination.

It was seven o’clock before Cobalt finally woke Madison.

“Time to get up, hatchling,” Cobalt whispered. Madison yawned and groaned, but didn’t try to ignore him— her soldier upbringing in action, yet again. “I have good news.”

“Did they stop sending Vipers?” Madison asked blearily. She stumbled upright and pulled her clothes and toothbrush out of the duffle bag.

“No. We’re not  _ that  _ lucky. But Wesley found the Eastern Chapterhouse,” Cobalt said. Madison blinked, her eyes bleary. “We can send you home. Back to your sister and parents.”

Madison stared at him for a long time.

“Huh,” she finally acknowledged. “I need to brush my teeth.”

_ I will never understand children.  _ Cobalt shook his head as Madison left for the bathroom. He knew that she was frustrated that he couldn’t go with her, and that he kept telling her not to talk about him in a positive light, but couldn’t she muster up a  _ little  _ bit of excitement? Maybe it was too early to be excited.

At least she wasn’t crying, anymore.

“You… you didn’t teach her anything, did you?” Cobalt turned to Wesley, who raised his eyebrows questioningly, as if he  _ definitely  _ showed her something and was feigning ignorance. “You wouldn’t teach a six-year-old how to do what you do, right? You know that she’s too young to know how to… do this stuff.”

“ _ I  _ started at six.”

Cobalt was immensely glad that he wasn’t holding anything, because he definitely would have dropped it.

“You started  _ when? _ ”

Wesley gave him a look between exasperated and wary. “My parents got a computer and couldn’t figure out how to use it properly. School was too easy for me, I didn’t have any friends, and I didn’t live in an area where it was safe to go outside whenever I wanted, so I taught myself programming for fun. Things progressed from there,” he said with a shrug. “You were gone for a few hours, and Madison wouldn’t stop asking questions about what I was doing, so I taught her the basics of C programming. Nothing she could use to hurt us.”

“That’s… y’know what? That’s not my problem is what that is,” Cobalt decided. It would be the Order’s job to contain Madison’s constant questions. Not his. Not anymore. “You ready to go?”

Wes nodded, dragging his fingers through his hair a few times before he tied his hair up in a messy ponytail.

“Leandro?” Madison padded out of the bathroom in overalls and a bright yellow shirt. Her eyes were troubled and serious on her too-young face. “Do we have to go  _ today? _ ”

Cobalt sighed to himself, glancing around the room helplessly. Of course it would come to this. It had only been a month, really— not long enough for anyone to get attached, if they were in their right mind. And yet… there they were. A child of the Order and a defective dragon, who desperately needed to go their separate ways if they wanted to survive and be happy. He needed for Madison to remember that he had kidnapped her. That at the end of the day, they were _enemies._

Except that they weren’t.

“Higgins, can you get the car ready?” Cobalt asked. 

Wesley shrugged, shouldered his bag, and grabbed his cane, leaving the room without another word. The door closed with a click. They were alone.

Cobalt took a breath and sat down on the bed, letting Madison sit beside him. He stayed silent for a few seconds as he mulled over his words. There was a lot that he wanted to say, but he couldn’t think of anything.

“Will I be able to talk to you again?” Madison asked. “You got into the Chapterhouse before. We could meet up when I’m older.”

Cobalt swallowed. “That would be…  _ very  _ dangerous, for both of us. It would probably be best if we both tried to— to—”  _ Forget.  _ That wasn’t happening. Not for him. “When you’re older… if you can find me, then I’d agree to talk. If you still want to talk.” He took a deep breath and looked her in the eye. “You might not want to find me. When you go back to the Order, they’ll say that I kidnapped you. And they’ll be right.”

“It’s not like that, though,” Madison said indignantly. “You didn’t  _ want  _ to kidnap me, and you’re letting me go now.” She pouted slightly, which made Cobalt’s lips twist into a smile. “Even though I don’t want to  _ go,  _ yet.”

“Sorry,” he said. “But don’t you miss your parents? Your sister?”

Madison blinked, seeming to ponder over the question. “Yeah.”

“And don’t you think they’re worried for you?”

“Yeah,” she sniffed a bit. “But I’m going to miss you _. _ And no one’ll listen to me. They’re going to say that you’re evil, and you’re part of Talon, and they’re gonna want me to learn how to kill you. I don’t want to kill dragons, anymore. What if they’re not part of Talon?  _ I  _ can’t tell the difference.”

Cobalt winced.

_ Okay. You decided to kidnap her and put all of these thoughts in her head. It’s your job to put it right. _

“Listen, hatchling,” he said softly. “The Order’s going to tell you a lot of things,and they probably won’t listen when you try to speak. And that stinks. But you never,  _ never  _ have to do something that you think is wrong. Okay?” Madison nodded, eyes teary. “Good. Because I learned that the hard way, and now I have Talon  _ and  _ St. George trying to murder me. You don’t have to kill dragons if you think it’s wrong.”

“Okay,” she whispered.

“But… you  _ do  _ need to go back home. Because it’s safe, and because you have a family back there, and because you need to decide what you want to do with your life. Stay there for now. When you’re older… if you still don’t want to kill dragons, then you can leave. Go out and find your own path. Maybe you’ll want to find me, and maybe you’ll want to get away from the war all together… or maybe you’ll want to stay with the Order. But when you decide, whatever you decide, I’ll understand. And if your family loves you, they’ll understand, too.”

Madison sniffed again and wiped her eyes. Cobalt felt his hands shake slightly and let out a steady breath. 

_ Dragons don’t cry.  _

“You’re going to change the world, someday, Madison d’Arc. You’re too strong for anything less,” Cobalt whispered. Madison lurched and threw her arms around his neck, making Cobalt tense and nearly throw her off. But... she was crying, again. 

“I won’ forget you,” She mumbled into his shoulder. “Promise.”

Cobalt’s breath shuddered, and something itched behind his eyes. He hugged her back tightly and closed his eyes tightly. “I won’t forget  _ you. _ ” He swallowed and picked her up. “C’mon. You’ll be home before you know it. You can tell your sister all about it… I bet it’s a better story than the ones about dragons eating small children.”

 

~***~

 

Wesley, it turned out, wasn’t a particularly good driver, but he was good enough to go where they needed without getting pulled over. Cobalt ignored his presence and instead kept up a casual conversation with Madison. She asked more questions than normal, as if trying to squeeze as much information out of their last interaction as possible. Cobalt tried to answer as much as he could without telling her anything that could be used to track him down. He talked a bit about his life in Talon, leaving out the gory bits and sticking to his time before human assimilation. They had a very long and slightly painful conversation about different types of dragons, and what the difference between all of them was. Madison talked a bit about her life in the Order, about her sister, and how she lived in Nova Scotia before her parents moved to the new Northern Chapterhouse. 

She had changed, since he had first met her. Or maybe just let him know the person under her shell. She wasn’t the little girl who was afraid of dragons and cried over the loss of her yellow dress. She was inquisitive and outgoing, and shockingly intelligent. 

And he had changed, too. Hopefully for the better.

“We’re five miles out,” Wesley said softly. He pulled to the side of the dirt road, eyes solemn as he looked at Cobalt. They were still in the wooded area, the Chapterhouse far out of eyesight, but Cobalt didn’t want to risk driving any further. “You okay?”

Cobalt shot him a glare. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Are we there already?” Madison asked softly. Cobalt winced, and Wesley gave him a look.

“Yeah, we’re there,” Cobalt responded. “I’ll walk you up a bit further and teach you how to send up a flare, and the Eastern Chapterhouse guys will find you. If they don’t, then you can just follow the path.” Madison’s face crumpled. “C’mon. Let’s say goodbye to Wesley, and then we can keep talking as we walk.”

Madison sniffed and unbuckled her seatbelt, only to reach up and clamber into the front seat. She hugged Wesley tightly. After a few moments, he returned it hesitantly and ruffled her hair.

“Thanks for teaching me about computers,” she whispered.

“Keep at it, and you might be able to track us down in a few years,” Wesley broke away and gave her a smile. For the first time since Cobalt knew him, he didn’t shrug off the touch or flinch from the unexpectedness of it. Maybe his tiny hacker partner had grown attached as well.

Cobalt took her hand and stepped out of the car, and she followed obediently. For a few minutes, they walked in silence, only the sounds of the forest to keep them company. Cobalt kept his eyes trained on the path. Strangely enough, being so close to the Mississippi Chapterhouse didn’t set him on edge. Getting Madison home was the only thing that mattered.

Even if that meant never seeing her again. Even if that meant handing her over to the people that would make her a dragon killer. They were her people.  _ Not  _ him.

“What do you really look like?” Madison asked.

Cobalt stopped dead in his tracks. For a few seconds, he couldn’t find anything to say, his brain stuttering over the question. Then he took a breath and managed to reply:

“I’m sorry,  _ what? _ ”

“What do you really look like? Y’know, as a dragon,” she said. “Can I see?” 

“I’m—” Of  _ all  _ of the questions to ask three miles from a St. George Chapterhouse. How the hell did he answer that? “I’m blue.”

_ Great job, Cobalt. “I’m blue”, that’ll satisfy her.  _

“I can’t shift here,” he added.

“I won’t be scared. I’m not scared of dragons, anymore, and I’m  _ definitely  _ not scared of you,” Madison grabbed his arm. “ _ Please? _ ”

“I…”  _ Dammit.  _ He could think of a hundred reasons that shifting would be an awful idea. He was too close to the chapterhouse for it to be safe. He could terrify Madison and have her run for help, which meant that she could get lost or injured. He was  _ three miles  _ from a St. George Chapterhouse. The only time he should be shifting around anyone from St. George should be while fighting, and that  _ included  _ St. George six-year-olds. Even if said six-year-old had been staying with him for the past month, and he was about to leave her forever. He didn’t want to deny a question, even one as inconvenient as that one. 

And maybe,  _ maybe,  _ if she saw a dragon up close… she wouldn’t go back to thinking they were monsters when she returned to St. George, and she wouldn’t become a dragon killer.

“Leandro? Are you okay?”

“Close your eyes,” Cobalt said. “No peeking.”

Madison’s eyes widened, and then she covered them with her hands. Cobalt walked a few paces away. The Chapterhouse was still three miles away, and he was in the cover of the woods. It would be fine. He pulled his shoes off and stripped down— he wasn’t particularly modest, but he didn’t want to go anywhere completely naked, and he didn’t want to shred a perfectly good shirt, either. He felt the shift ripple through his body, his skin melting into scales, the tense energy that he always carried finally dissipating as he changed to his true form. 700 pounds of muscle and bone, iron-hard scales of blue and black, claws that could cut through a human in less than a second. Madison was painfully small next to him.

“You can open them,” Cobalt whispered softly, his voice scratchy and low.

Madison lowered her hands and gasped. Cobalt tensed, preparing to… he didn’t know. If she ran for the Chapterhouse and alerted the Order, it would mean having an army of dragon killers on his tail. But he couldn’t exactly restrain her— he would kill her in this form. He couldn’t kill her in the Northern Chapterhouse, and that was when he didn’t know her. He definitely couldn’t, now

_ Well, she deserved to see what I really am. For better or for worse. _

“You have antlers,” Madison said. 

Cobalt cocked his head to the side, and Madison reached up to touch them. He froze. Her arms were inches away from his face, and the razor sharp teeth that had torn apart throats soldiers. And yet, she was completely unafraid. “Do all dragons have antlers?”

“No,” Cobalt said. He straightened to his full height, wings flaring slightly. “Most dragons just have horns.”

Madison stared at him longer, her eyes tracking the twitch of his tail and the movement of his spines. Then she crossed her arms and gave a decisive nod.

“You’re still Leandro,” she decided. Cobalt have a harsh snort of laughter. “You’re a very pretty dragon, I think. A little scary, though.”

“We’re supposed to be a little scary. It keeps small children from getting emotionally attached. Now turn around and let me put my clothes back on.”

The rest of their trip through the woods passed in relative silence. Everything that they needed to say, they had already said. Madison gripped his hand, and eventually asked to be picked up. Cobalt obliged without protest. 

He was going to miss having her around.

“I think that my sister will listen to me,” Madison said as they reached the edge of the woods. Cobalt could see the Chapterhouse in the distance, on top of the hill. “I’ll tell her that dragons can be good. I’ll tell Mom and Dad, too, but I don’t think that they’ll believe me.”

Cobalt sighed and set her down, retrieving the flare gun from his holster. “Nothing I say is going to convince you to be quiet and let the adults decide that I’m evil, is it?”

“Nope,” she shook her head. “You’re not evil.”

“Alright,” Cobalt said. He knelt beside her and pushed some hair out of her face. “If this is the battle you want to fight, you have a long war ahead of you. Be careful, hatchling.”

“You be careful, too,” she said, and offered a pinkie. “Pinkie promise.”

Cobalt smirked. “Pinkie promise.” He hugged her tightly, ignoring the pain growing in the center of his chest. After this, they’d go their separate ways, and they’d hopefully never see each other again. He was going to go directly against Talon, and he probably wouldn’t live longer than a few years. Madison would… he didn’t know what her future would be. Whatever it was, he hoped it was kind.

“Okay,” Cobalt breathed. He broke away and wiped her eyes. “You take the flare gun. Count to a hundred, point it up in the sky, and pull the trigger. It’s that easy. You can do that?”

“I know how to use a flare gun.”

“Okay,” Cobalt managed a smile and hugged her again, keeping it quick. It he stayed any longer, he might not have the resolve to leave. “I’ll miss you, hatchling.”

“I’ll miss you, too, Leandro. Don’t forget me.”

“I won’t. I promise,” Cobalt stood and ran a hand through his hair. He took a deep breath.

Then he turned around, and walked back into the forest. He didn’t look over his shoulder the entire way back to the car. 

Even with Wesley, the drive felt empty and silent without Madison. Cobalt kept his eyes firmly fixed on the horizon. He could imagine the Mississippi Chapterhouse, asking questions about who she was, how she was so far south, why she had left her home. He hoped that she was okay. He hoped that they’d treat her newfound sympathy for dragons with pity, rather than seeing it as corruption.

“You did the right thing,” Wesley said softly. “She deserved to go home.” There was a silence. Cobalt half expected Madison to pipe in with a question, or an opinion, but it was just the two of them. A juvenile ex-basilisk and a runaway hacker. 

“So… am I still calling you Leandro, or…”

Cobalt laughed weakly. “No, I think that it’s safe to go back to Cobalt.”

“Good to know,” Wesley said. “While we’re at it… you can call me Wes, if you want to. It’s what my family always called me.”

Cobalt looked over Wesley, whose eyes were fixed solidly on the road. “Is that what we are?”

“Definitely not. But, as plans go, we’ll probably be spending the rest of our lives in close quarters. Short as they may be,” he said. “Wesley’s a tad bit formal.”

Cobalt smirked and reached over to brush some loose hair behind Wesley’s ear. Wesley made a vague sound of annoyance in the back of his throat, but he didn’t flinch away from the touch.

“I suppose so. Wes, then. Wes the Ex-Talon super-elite hacker.”

“You… piss off.” Wes tugged at his shirt collar slightly and reached to fiddle with his necklace, only for the car to jolt slightly as he pressed his hand to his chest. Cobalt straightened, his mind going to anything that could be wrong. Wes opened his mouth, but nothing came out for a few moments.

“The bloody twat  _ stole _ my necklace,” he said indignantly. “That was a family heirloom, and she  _ stole  _ it!”

Cobalt’s eyes widened. 

Then he burst into laughter.

_ So we’re still together, after all. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE END. (Except for the epilogue)  
> (Stay tuned for this weekend)


	10. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 12 years later

**12 years later**

_ This.  _ This was the worst decision that Riley had ever made. 

He was sneaking into a St. George Chapterhouse with a sixteen-year-old, crawling with armed and trained soldiers, in order to  _ rescue  _ one of the dragon killers. And for what? So some sixteen-year-old hatchling could have her so-called friend back?  _ Bullshit.  _ They had both been lying to each other the entire summer. Let him burn, for all he cared.

“ _ Camera’s on loop, and the door will open in three, two one, _ ” Wes said tersely over the phone. Riley took a breath and walked meaningfully over to the door, wrenching it open and slipping inside the building before anyone could see them. Ember was silent beside him, her eyes set and determined.

“We’re in. Where to?” Riley asked. 

“ _ There’s a sub-basement, and security blueprints has the same configurations as a prison. If I had to keep someone contained for execution, that’s where I’d do it,”  _ Wes replied “ _ You continue down the hall and take a right at the second junction. I don’t know the schedule of the guards, but there’s one in the east wing to watch out for.” _

“Right. Heading there, now,” Riley responded. He kept Ember’s hand in his grip as they walked, tense and silent in the headquarters of a bunch of genocidal maniacs. He was eerily aware of the  _ other  _ Chapterhouse that he had been in twelve years ago, when he was still a part of Talon. Before he had met Wes, and before…

Being perfectly honest, Riley doubted that he would even  _ consider  _ breaking a soldier out, no matter  _ who  _ it was for, if he didn’t have that kid stuck in the back of his head. The girl who had been born into the Order, and still managed to be energetic and inquisitive and willing to change her mind. He still wondered how she was doing— if she still stuck by her promise, or if she hated dragons for what he had done to her.

Riley shook himself. That was twelve years ago, and he hadn’t heard from her since. He needed to focus on the present, and his standing goal of  _ not dying. _

“We’re at the stairwell,” Riley said.

“ _ There’s a camera there, give me a few seconds,”  _ Wes muttered. Riley waited, eyes scanning the hallway. They were way too exposed. He hated it. “ _ What the hell? _ ”

Riley took a shallow breath. “What’s the problem?” He felt Ember stiffend beside him, her jaw clenching painfully.

“ _ I’m getting interference, _ ” Wes said.  _ “Something… is trying to break into the database that  _ **_I’ve_ ** _ already broken into… and sent a virus at my firewall to do it. Bloody bastards. _ ”

Riley furrowed his brow. “What the hell?”

“What’s going on?” Ember hissed. She looked pale, her black Viper’s suit standing out even more starkly against her skin.

“Don’t know yet,” Riley muttered. “Wes, do you know where the other party is?”

“ _ Give me a sec…”  _ Wes growled. “ _ Whoever they are, they’re cracking this from one of the internal computers. They’re in the same building as you. _ ” A chill crawled over Cobalt’s skin. He hated this.  _ “So I just need to convince their computer to take a little nap… and they just went dark, so I have control of the cameras. _ ”

A door opened near them, and a figure stepped out. Riley yanked Ember into the nearest room— a cramped, dusty place with shelves to the ceiling, crammed with binders. Riley kept the door cracked and stared at the person.

It was a girl, probably in her late teens or early twenties, with dirty blonde hair kept in a low ponytail. She wore dark clothing clothing and a utility belt similar to his own, along with an earpiece that she was speaking into.

“Slight problem. Someone is already in the cameras, and they’re... better than me. Ate my Overwrite Virus like it was nothing,” she said softly. Riley narrowed his eyes, reaching for his gun. This girl, whoever she was, wasn’t supposed to be there, either. She wasn’t from Talon, because Talon wouldn’t send a human into a St. George Chapterhouse. So who was she, and why was she here, at the same time _he_ was?

“ _ No.  _ This kid has a reputation for being the Perfect Soldier. If he’s really turned on St. George, there’s no way in hell that I’m leaving without him,” she continued. “Are there any vents that lead down there, or to the security room?” There was a pause. “I don’t know, Carmen,  _ I  _ don’t have the blueprints… Okay. Thanks, you’re the best.” 

The girl turned towards the room that Riley and Ember hid in and walked towards it. Riley lurched back and hid himself in the filing cases, Ember behind him, silent as the dead. Her expression was dead set and determined. No doubt that she had been listening in on the conversation, as well. 

_ So, she’s after the soldier, as well. I wonder what for. _

The girl crept into the room and swung the door nearly shut behind her. She flickered on a flashlight as she followed the wall to a vent in the wall, pushing dry air into the room. Riley slunk up behind her, motioning for Ember to follow. He levelled the gun at the girl’s head and cleared his throat.

There was a long, tense pause.

_ “Shit, _ ” she whispered. 

Then she spun around and grabbed his wrist, wrenching the gun away from her body. Riley grunted and kneed her hard in the stomach. He dropped the gun and twisted his wrist out of her grasp, only for her to shove a taser into his side. Electricity coursed through him, making him double over from the sheer force of the weapon. She elbowed him hard in the temple and then yelped as Ember hit her in the throat. Cobalt righted himself in time to see Ember snake a hand around her throat. 

A knife flashed in the darkness, and Ember reeled backwards with a curse before drawing her hand back and nailing the girl hard in the face. Riley saw the crackle of the taser activate. He managed to grab the girl’s arm before she could use it and pulled her wrist behind her back. She kicked his shins and twisted herself away from him before he could get a firmer hold on her, backing up to face both of them.

In the dim light, Cobalt saw her eyes widen. And when he looked her over properly, he froze where he stood.

Her hair was darker than he remembered, and she was built like a soldier instead of a child. She had a scar on her face that was either from dragonfire or a close encounter with a bomb. Cobalt couldn’t recognize her as the girl that he had once known, if it weren’t for the necklace that she wore— a six-pointed star, jostled out from under her shirt during the fight.

It was Wes’ necklace.

“ _ Leandro? _ ” she hissed. 

Riley gaped. 

Of all of the people he expected to run into that night, Madison d’Arc was  _ not _ one of them. For twelve years, he hadn’t once heard from her. He had done his best to forget about those few weeks as a rogue. Why here? Why  _ now? _

“Who the hell is Leandro?” Ember asked. Riley jolted back into reality. Ember was still poised to fight, and Madison still had a taser in one hand and a knife in the other. She looked less guarded than she had been a few seconds ago, and had most of her attention focused on him, but she was still armed.

“I’m Leandro,” Riley said quickly. “She— we’re— we were…” he paused, looking between the two of them. Madison was still staring at him in pure shock. “Why are you here?”

“Why are  _ you  _ here?”

“Rescue mission.”

“You shouldn’t even  _ know  _ about Sebastian’s predicament, let alone care.”

“I’m making an exception,” Riley said, leaving out the fact that he was only doing this because one of his hatchlings insisted that they jailbreak the kid. “Why are you—”

“What the hell is going on?” Ember interrupted. 

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Riley said, maybe a bit more panicked than he meant. This day had turned from weird to nonsensical. Madison was standing in front of him.  _ Madison.  _ The six-year-old who cried when he lost her yellow dress and was afraid of ghosts. Who he had never been supposed to see again. Who was skulking around a St. George Chapterhouse like she didn’t belong in one.

“Carmen, we have a snag in the plan, there’s a  _ dragon  _ in the Chapterhouse,” Madison muttered. “Don’t ask questions, I have no answers, but I don’t think he’s planning on leaving. Hold on— is there any way I could convince you to leave? We could meet up later, after I have Sebastian safe and somewhere far away from the Western Chapterhouse?”

“No way. We have no idea who you are, or what you want with him,” Ember snapped. “Do we?”

“Yeah…” Riley said slowly. “Or, we did. When I first went rogue. And she was  _ six.  _ Why are you— Sebastian’s a traitor to St. George, why are you helping him?”

“Um. Funny story there. That I’ll explain  _ after  _ we get Sebastian out of holding,” she said. “We only have ninety minutes until dawn, and the Order is nothing if not punctual.” There was a silence. “I assume that the problem I ran into with the cameras is because of Wesley?”

“She knows  _ Wes? _ ”

“Yeah,” Riley responded. He didn’t elaborate as he put his phone back to his ear. “Slight complication.”

_ “Bloody hell. _ ”

“We’ve run into an old friend by the name of Madison d’Arc.”

“ _ What? _ ”

“Yeah.”

“ _ The six-year-old? _ ”

“Well, she’s… eighteen-ish, now, but yeah. And she’s on our side. I think. She’s trying to bust the soldier out, too.”

_ “What? _ ”

Riley took a deep breath. “I’m as lost as you are, right now. I think we can wait for answers until after we’re somewhere far, far away from this place. Can you just get us to the cells so we can leave?”

The three of them crept back into the hallway, and Riley opened the door at Wes’ signal. The stairwell led them down two floors, to a single, unassuming door made out of thick steel.

“Guard room,” Madison breathed.

Riley stared. The eyes were right. The hair texture was right. The voice was wrong. The side of the war she was fighting—

“ _ What? _ ” Madison hissed. “Look, I’m just as freaked out as you are, but I only have  _ one  _ chance to jailbreak this kid, and if I get caught, I’ll be executed within the day.”

“You went back to St. George,” Riley said. “I sent you back to St. George. Why are you…  _ here? _ ”

“Well,” Madison looked away. “Isn’t that an interesting conversation topic. Which one of us is dealing with the guards? I’d rather no deaths. Could you two knock them out without any murder?”

“That’s… doable,” Riley said, and it was a testament to his shock that he didn’t feel anything over being given orders not to kill any soldiers. “Ember? Do you think that you can pull of anymore of your viper stunts?”

“Can I have your taser?” Ember asked. 

Madison’s face twitched, but she tossed her the taser.

“Wes, can you get the door open?” Riley asked. 

“ _ Give me a second. Three… two… one, go.” _

“Now.”

Madison wrenched open the door, and Ember darted in. One of the soldiers went down before he could so much as move, the taser’s crackle the only sound to show for it, and Riley darted in to slam the other against the wall. Madison looked between the two of them, eyes wide in shock. Ember tossed back the taser, and she caught it easily with one hand.

“That was… impressive,” she whispered.

“Maddie,” Riley said. “Why are you here? And don’t say it’s to get Sebastian out, because you know that’s not what I’m asking. Why aren’t you in St. George?”

Madison looked down at the floor and chewed on her lip. “I left,” she said softly, crossing her arms. “The Order thought that I was traumatized, and then they thought I was corrupted, and… I couldn’t help kill dragons. I couldn’t tell which ones were in Talon, and which ones were like you. I convinced my sister and a few of my friends to follow me, and we abandoned the Order three years ago.” She swallowed. “I tried to find you, but you’re good at hiding, so I started finding others that wanted to leave for whatever reason. We search for Talon activity and try to sabotage them whenever we can, and wipe Order information from their servers whenever we’re given the opportunity.”

Riley blinked, his mouth going dry as she realized what she was doing. 

She was running an underground.

“We can talk more,” she said, rubbing the back of her neck, looking painfully insecure for a moment, “ _ after  _ we get Sebastian.”

“How do the two of you know each other?” Ember hissed.

Madison opened the door without another word, and Riley followed in a daze.

There were four cells in the prison, all vacant except for one. Garret Xavier Sebastian’s eyes were wide as he looked at the three of them, eyes passing from Ember to Madison to him in increased confusion. He’d find it amusing, if they weren’t in a St. George Chapterhouse.

“Garret,” Ember breathed. Riley felt a twinge of jealousy, but it was easier than usual to shove it down beneath his own shock.

“I’m... hallucinating,” he said levelly. “This is my legacy. Garret Xavier Sebastian suffers mental breakdown hours before his execution, dies at seventeen. Tristan’s going to have a  _ fit. _ ”

“You’re not hallucinating,” Madison said. She pulled a lockpick set out of her belt and set to work on the lock. After about a minute and a half, it clicked, and she swung the door open. “I trust you know who I am?”

_ So Madison d’Arc has a reputation. That’s dangerous. Inevitable, but dangerous. _

“Renegade?” the soldier said, voice putting it as a question. He looked at Riley, confusion still plain on the crease of his brow.

“Indeed I am. Nice to know that the Order still uses that nickname; I’ve grown fond of it.”

“Do you work for dragons?”

“No. This is… actually, kinda coincidental. We all have a lot of explaining to do. Later. Right now, I’d like to get the hell out of dodge before the four of us get killed,” Madison said. “Carmen, you still with me?” she spoke into her earpiece. “Yeah, I have Sebastian. Do we still have an exit on the south side?” She paused, and then looked at Garret. “You know the most about this chapterhouse, do you think we’ll be able to make it out on the south side?” Garret nodded. He looked as shocked as Riley felt. “Cool. Here, have a knife. Try not to kill anyone, it’ll make coming back for St. Anthony a hassle.”

“ _ What? _ ”

Escaping went surprisingly smoothly, even with four people instead of three. Wes walked them around the cameras, and Madison’s counterpart,  _ Carmen,  _ seemed to know the layout of the base to guide them to an unguarded part of the fence that had already been cut through. Riley let out a shaky breath.

“Change of rendezvous plans,” Madison whispered, looking at Riley questioningly. She covered her earpiece. “Where to?”

Riley swallowed, hesitating for a moment. This wasn’t Madison the six-year-old. This was Madison the… the…

_ She defected from St. George. She isn’t asking for your head on a pike. That’s good news, right? _

“Two miles northeast of the Chapterhouse, there’s a van parked with its headlights off. That’s where Wes is,” Riley said and put his phone to his ear to relay the information. Wes, surprisingly, didn’t protest.

“ _ Now  _ will someone catch me up?” Ember asked. “And catch Garret up? How do you know each other?”

Riley let out a long sigh and looked back at the two of them. The night had become way too strange for him to be jealous or defensive over the soldier’s intrusion into his life.

“Before I left Talon, they sent me to blow up the Canadian Chapterhouse. I ran into Madison, knocked her out, and I couldn’t leave her in a building that was about to explode or let her run off and warn the soldiers about an intruder, so I disabled the bomb and kidnapped her. I dropped her off at the Eastern Chapterhouse about a month later,” Riley said. He didn’t mention that he killed Stealth for her, or that she had seen his true form without an inkling of fear, or that the necklace that she wore belonged to Wes.

“Since seeing the other side of dragons, I decided to try to change the Order,” Madison picked up. “And when it refused to change, I decided to make something else. Something that fought against the real enemies, instead of attacking whichever dragons are the worst as hiding. I’ve been recruiting soldiers whose opinions conflict with the Order, women who feel that the Order is too controlling, and other wayward misfits who want an out. Some disappear into the general population, but most still want to be part of the war.” She glanced back at the soldier. “Garret probably knows all about it.”

The soldier’s expression twisted uncomfortably. “Their organization started three years ago. We call them the Renegades.”

“Quite fittingly, might I add.”

“They’re on the Order’s  _ apprehend on sight  _ list, but since none of them have had a formal trial and they never officially left the Order, they aren’t allowed to be brought down by lethal force,” he took a breath. He looked a bit sick. “What were you saying about Tristan?”

“After we get someone out, we usually try to come back for their partner. Most of them won’t defect, and I have low hope for Tristan St. Anthony, but if  _ you  _ defected, then…”

Riley let the conversation fall to the back of his mind— Madison was still a chatterbox, apparently, but he could see that she was smart about what she was saying. If she had survived for three years while poking at both St. George and Talon with a stick, then she had a good organization. It made Riley’s heart clench. He couldn’t tell if the emotion he was feeling was pride or guilt. She was supposed to be safe in the Order. That was why he sent her back in the first place.

But if she made the decision three years ago… she was fifteen. That was young, but he had gotten hatchlings who were younger out of Talon. It was old enough for her to decide whether or not she wanted to be safe. 

This was the battle she had chosen to fight. And she was a good fighter.

Dawn was creeping onto the horizon by the time they reached the rendezvous point. There were two vans where there had previously only been one, and Wes was in what looked to be a stiff conversation with another human— a woman dressed in tactical gear, with pale skin and ashy brown hair. She looked up, and she visibly relaxed when she saw them.

“Maddie,” she breathed. “This was  _ way _ too close to the deadline.”

“I know, I know. But we have Sebastian,” Madison hugged the woman. “And friends.”

“I noticed.”

“You’ve been acquainted with Wes. That’s Leandro, and… I don’t know who the girl is. Leandro, this is Carmen, my older sister,” Madison said. 

Wes looked at the two of them, his expression torn between suspicious and relieved. Then he shook himself and walked over to Riley to check him over. Madison winced visibly.

“You still have a limp?” she asked. Wes shot a withering glare in her direction. “Ouch.”

“ _ Yeah. _ ”

“Is anyone gonna tell me _that_ story?” Ember asked, a tinge of annoyance in her voice. Riley cringed. This had to be confusing for her. It was confusing for him.

“Well, Riley met me a bit later than he met Madison, and the first thing that he did was  _ shoot  _ me,” Wes said. Riley rubbed that the bridge of his nose, and he heard Madison snicker. “Neither of us knew anything more than field-level first aid, so it healed wrong, and now I still have nerve damage.”

“Please, I’ve apologized for that _so_ many times. Let it go.”  
“Never,” Wes said. “Any injuries that I should know about?”

“Ember got stabbed, but it’s on her arm. Won’t need more than a few stitches.  You can chill.”

“I can do no such thing.”

Madison grinned a crooked smile as she looked at the two of them, crossing her arms. Wes took Ember’s arm and looked it over, pronouncing it nonlethal enough that she could take care of it herself and then gave Riley a brief hug. That was the closest he could ever get to an  _ ‘I’m happy you’re safe’. _

“So, what’s the plan, Maddie?” Carmen asked softly, glancing between Riley and Wes warily. “We have the Perfect Soldier, just like you wanted.”

“Oh, I think we have more than that,” Madison said, her grin widening as she looked at him. She wasn’t challenging him, exactly, but the air she gave was still something to be respected. She was a capable leader, now, with her own underground. A far cry from the Madison  _ he  _ knew. “I think we’ve stumbled upon a great opportunity for the both of our parties.” 

She extended her hand for a shake, her gaze unwavering.

“What d’you say, Leandro? Shall we discuss an alliance?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE END.
> 
> Wow. This has been a journey. I started this fanfiction in January because I was bored, back when Madison hated and feared Cobalt for everything he was worth. Now here we are, six months and 25,000 words later. Thank you for joining me on this ride.
> 
> Now, you may notice that this is marked open ending, and there is certainly room to expand on it. I do not plan to do this anytime soon. Maybe in the distant future after I finish some of my other projects and think up a plot, but until that hypothetical date, this is a good place to let it end. HOWEVER, as this is now open to the public, you can write your own sequel if you wish. It's fanfiction. That's the entire point.
> 
> Thank you, again, for accompanying me on this journey, it's been fun. You may have seen the last of this story, but you have not seen the rest of me. I'm inescapable.

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter is a bit short, but they WILL be longer.
> 
> Please drop a review, if you feel so inclined, tell me what you think!


End file.
